Hybrid Theory: Evolution
by The Sh33p
Summary: Time has but three constants: Death, rebirth, and evolution. A month after his Tenkaichi Budoukai war with Dabura, Son Gohan is about to learn this the hard way... (R&R please, complete!)
1. Part of Me

  
**Author`s Note:** Welcome to the first(and probably the only) installment of the Hybrid Theory stories to cross over into Sailor Moon! This one took me a while to write, and hopefully it`s a whole lot different from any of the other fics in this section, but damnit, **I finished it!!!** The plot doesn`t really move fast in the first chapter since I`m just setting things up here, but given how things move later... Heh  
  
A note ahead of time though, forgive any description errors with the scouts(senshi), or those around them. Also, disregard any attempt to view all of the evidence of the Passage of Time as one thing, I intentionally made it inconsistant with it`s own effects to prevent people from really understanding it perfectly. And even that is actually passively consistant since the saying "time is ever changing" would fit best there.  
  
Oh and one last thing, this story has a lot of backplot to it(most of it subtle or just hard to catch otherwise), so I suggest looking into my bio and reading each of the other Hybrid Theory stories(Hybrid Theory, EP - Forgotten, Hybrid Theory Redux, EP - Next Year) if you want the whole story, but since this can still pretty much stand alone, you don`t need to.  
  
**Disclaimer:** I don`t own DB, DBZ, SM, SMR, SMS, SMSS, or SM Stars... Well god damn dude O.o;  
  


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Hybrid Theory: Evolution

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_Part of Me_  
  
  
  
Morning on a Thursday, the first day of Summer for Son Gohan. A month had gone by since his entrance into the world`s martial arts "Top Name List," a solid month he had spent dodging the infrequent reporter and the occasional rabid fan, a month he had spent helping make up for damage done to Piccolo`s pride by helping the other train from time to time when Vegeta was actually willing to accept a sparring partner. To date, the Prince had yet to beat Gohan in the five matches they`d actually had against one another, but each fight brought the Prince a few new tactics and a few new tricks. He was improving in other ways to make up for his lack of power compared to Gohan, without even knowing it no less.   
  
This morning though, none of that really mattered. This morning, Gohan had spent the past hour getting his room in order and talking to Videl for a few minutes afterward. This morning, Gohan had decided it was time to face up to something he`d been putting off for a time.   
  
Namely, himself.   
  
Or to be more precise, the power he had been born with. The power that still, to this day, threatened to overwhelm him. He was scared of it, he was the only one that really knew enough of it to actually be scared now that he remembered all of the times he had used it. That first time as a baby, again when he was first kidnapped by Garlic Junior, once more against his own uncle, again and again and again through the years. For some reason, his mind`s own defenses had lowered enough that he actually remembered it. He didn`t truly know what to think though, and that was why he was doing this. His mother had cursed at him a few times, yelled, even tried to bust out the frying pan(Number 6, the solid neo-titanium frying pan Bulma had bought her) more than once in an attempt - however futile it was - to make him reconsider.   
  
Today, she was standing at the door, eight months pregnant, eyes a bit moistened and hair up. She was upset alright, but she wasn`t going to show it. Not with Piccolo around. A strange thing had happened in the days after the Tenkaichi Budoukai, Piccolo and ChiChi had actually come to regard one another on genuine speaking terms. ChiChi even seemed to be coming close to adopting Piccolo into the family in a similar way to how she`d emotionally adopted Krillin and Yamcha.   
  
Not to say the Namek didn`t still fear her for the frying pan skills the woman had, but that`s another story entirely.   
  
"You`re still going through with it?" Gohan heard somewhere as he walked down the stairs from his bedroom and moved towards the door, and by default, ChiChi. The boy was dressed in a new douji, one he had gotten from Piccolo as a gift for passing the schoolyear with flying colors in every subject but health(Gohan seemed to have problems remembering it all), and the youth looked more and more to be coming into his own - even at his clothing style. It was a combination of his father`s douji and the one he and Piccolo had both worn to the Cell Games. The the pants were black, and the over shirt was the same as Piccolo`s, only black and with a slightly steeper drop at the neck, down to just beneath the collar. The belt, wrist bands, and the newly added boots were all dark blue, and three symbols adorned his shirt, the first placed over his heart was a symbol reading "Trained by Son Goku," the second, on his back, read "Trained by Piccolo Junior," and the third was placed on either shoulder, reading as "Trained by Krillin Chestnut," a smaller reference to the time he had spent 'mind sparring' with Krillin on the way to Namek.   
  
The boy also had a military-styled backpack slung over his shoulders, and the old Power Pole was held in it`s traditional scabbardesque carrier in one of his hands since didn`t have it slung over his shoulder just yet.   
  
"Yes," he answered simply as he stopped in front of his mother. Piccolo said nothing. ChiChi looked upset but she bit back any further reply. "Then..." She stammered a bit. ChiChi was really a bit too worried to talk but in her present state, with his will as it was, she couldn`t do anything to really stop him. "I know, I`ll take care and I`ll be very careful not to do anything I`ll regret," Gohan replied before she could speak. "I didn`t spend six months out in the wilderness mostly alone and wander around on two alien worlds in a row a half a year later and learn nothing, you know," he informed her flatly. ChiChi chuckled half-heartedly and bent down, hugging her son tightly enough that even a super saiyan would have a bit of trouble breathing.   
  
Gohan hugged back and for a moment, time paused. Piccolo watched on from where he was standing, leaned against a wall. He had been forced to give himself some new attire given the fact a two ton cloak and a four hundred pound turban, along with two seventy pound wrist bands and a belt that was weighted to some five hundred pounds didn`t exactly bode well for ChiChi`s floor, so he was now wearing a plain outfit, jeans and a short sleeved shirt, along with another pair of sneakers, all borrowed from Goku`s closet. It seemed even when he was dead, Goku was _still_ giving to those around him.   
  
"I`ll see you when Summer`s over, probably," Gohan said while stepping by his mother and opening the door. ChiChi gave a nod and waved good-bye as her son, her soon-to-be-eldest son, exited the house and shut the door gently behind him. The Ox King stood outside quietly. Piccolo could hear Ox and Gohan exchanging words with one another, he could hear the two saying good-bye and he knew ChiChi could see the two hug one another before Gohan tossed his backpack onto the Nimbus and then slung the Power Pole around his neck and under his right arm before hopping on.   
  
"So long Grandpa, if my brother is born while I`m gone, keep an eye on him for me!" Gohan called out as the little gold cloud shut straight up into the air. The Ox King waved and listened as Gohan called out to him again. "... And if Videl asks where I am, just tell her I`m on Walk About!" The Ox King replied loudly. "Alright! Take care Gohan!" The old King yelled, uncertain if his grandson heard him or not.   
  
_ "I will, Grandpa,"_ Gohan thought in reply as the Nimbus twisted and turned about during it`s straight ascent. "That way!" Gohan yelled, arm jutting out on emphasis. The cloud had randomly ended up pointed South.   
  
_ Part of me won't go away  
Everyday reminded how much I hate it  
Weighted against the consequences  
Can't live without it so it's senseless  
  
_ "Let`s trail the coastline," Gohan suggested. The Nimbus seemed to puff up under him in reply before blasting off towards the coast at it`s top speed, which was actually pretty good given it`s age was nearly two hundred and fifty years total, perhaps a little older or a little younger, give or take a decade. Either way, it was a good ride if one was pure hearted enough to actually ride the little cloud.   
  
_ "Time to see what I`m made of..."   
  
Can't live without it so it's senseless  
Wanna cut it out of my soul  
And just live with a gaping hole  
Take control of my life  
  
_ He was really beginning to remember all of that hidden power`s usage. He was now even remembering the times no one else knew of it, like that time it had manifested in a way that was so very different from the usage it saw now. He remembered, when he was three, how he had wandered into his grandfather`s bedroom while staying with the older man shortly before his schooling began. The Ox King had been going through some serious health issues at that time, the result of a cumulative series of injuries in his early and adult life, going back to when he had first tried on one of Roshi`s Turtle Shells and found his knees blown out, going on through years of hard fighting and ending with his eventual lung cancer as a result of twenty years of hardcore cigar smoking.   
  
Gohan was the only one that knew how that night had gone, he`d been woken up by the old man`s violent coughing, and unconciously, he had placed his hands to the elder`s chest while trying to wake him up. He now remembered the surge of energy that had followed, an electric blue glow that pulsed around his arms and into the other`s body. The Ox King woke up shortly after the process had finished itself off, and he hadn`t had another coughing fit since. Even his lung cancer had vanished and every wound he had ever developed seem to disappear or minimalize itself to where it wouldn`t ever be a problem for the rest of his life.   
  
Gohan was the only one to know, now, that the Earth`s first major invaders in his father`s lifetime hadn`t just destroyed his innocence, or his cowardice, or his weakness, but they`d also robbed him of the potential ability to help others. It had left him only with the destruction he could bring now, and he was truly embittered with them over it. It was probably why he had avoided a sixth spar with Vegeta. At least for now, he couldn`t stand the mere presence of the snobbish, arrogant Prince.   
  
At least the ocean had a good view though. Good enough to bring a smirk to the boy`s face as that golden cloud trailed out over it all. "Pretty nice day out," he observed, feeling the Flying Nimbus pull into a barrel roll for a moment and then straighten back out as if to give him a better view. The cloud seemed to puff up in response before bursting ahead again. The Nimbus cloud defied all logic and science, it just was.   
  
A bit of insanity in a too-sane world. Gohan loved the thing. He laughed as it dove downward and then sharply pulled up just before it could impact the sands, kicking up a monstrous two-sided wave of dirt and water before trailing back up and into the air at a lowered altitude, still on it`s course as the early morning sun continued it`s relentless climb towards noon. It was five hours since he had left home, possibly for the last time in a quarter of a year. He didn`t know what would happen next, but he didn`t really care.   
  
Gohan was free for once. He didn`t have to be a planetary savior, he didn`t have to train to fight some seemingly unstoppable menace, he didn`t have to act tough to get someone to back off, he didn`t have to study endlessly to appease someone who just wouldn`t listen to him when he talked of his own hopes and dreams. Freedom was a wonderful thing, it even meant he got the chance to make his own food...   
  
Which reminded him.   
  
A growl pierced the air and Gohan stared down at his stomach with a light frown. "Any fish nearby, Nimbus?" He asked the cloud, which darted out over the sea and halted, throwing Gohan forward and into the air. The cloud seemed to puff in and out repeatedly as a wheezing sound escaped it, while Gohan hung in the air with the Power Pole dangling precariously from his upper body. "It`s not funny!" He barked at the Nimbus. The cloud continued it`s strange form of laughter as Gohan frowned and flipped himself up right. "Be back in a minute," he grumbled out while letting himself fall toward the water.   
  
_ Heard of me the routine scar  
New cuts cover where the old ones are  
And now I'm sick of this  
I can't stand the sandpaper thoughts that grade away on my sanity  
I rather not even be then the man that's staring in the mirror through me  
  
"No going back now,"_ he thought as he ran for the exit of the tunnel. His own image was everywhere, that and the images of those he`d left behind. The exit of the tunnel, it was right ahead of him, closer and closer still but he just couldn`t seem to make it there, no matter how many jumps, rolls, hovers, flights or combinations, he just couldn`t seem to get there.   
  
_ "Everyone`s counting on me damn it... I can do this!"_ His will was strong, that was certain. His heart was in the right place as he continued his run, thinking of the people counting on him. A metallic/yellow streak blazed overhead and a golden streak dashed by him, but he paid no attention to any of them. A supremely valiant effort was made as the figure lowered his head somewhat and began to mutter out the old word pairing that had proven so vital to more than one victory in his battle filled life...   
  
"Super... **Kaio**... **_KEN!!!_**" He screamed loudly enough that it echoed through the tunnels of Time itself, all of them, loud enough that it was heard for ages within, seconds outside. A crimson, flowing aura swirled up around him, replacing the formerly bright golden aura of the figure and throwing him from the ethereally blackened floor of the infinitely large tunnel, straight forward.   
  
A blinding flash of light and he slammed into the tiling of the ground hard, the Kaio Ken`s aura drifting away with a golden outline to it as several tiles jumbled from a result of his harsh impact. Wounds dotted the figure of the young man, who stood at essentially the same height as his father, though he was obviously more muscular at his age than his father had been. He wore the same douji outfit though, right down to the color scheme, though the symbol on the back was differing in at least one respect. Rather than "Trained by Kame," or "Trained by King Kaio," or "Trained by Dai Kaio," or even "Trained by Kami," or "Trained by Korin." Instead of all of these, it read something that seemed unlikely, to say the absolute least, instead of all of these masters of the grandest martial arts around, it read, quite simply as "Trained by Vegeta."   
  
Given that it was Son Goten wearing the uniform, this was a shock indeed. "Made it," he gasped while pushing himself upward towards his feet, only to falter back down to his knees in a matter of seconds.   
  
"Worse for wear, but yes, you did," a female voice echoed from his side. "Congratulations on being the first to ever _run_ the tunnel of time with no magics or machinery whatsoever," the voice said calmly with a light echo even as it`s own stepped into view. In all his years, Goten had never expected that the gaurdian of time would be a woman, let alone a woman with a model-build and posture in a warped sailor schoolgirl uniform holding an oversized staff with flowing green hair that ran to just above her knees. "Who the hell?" He muttered while stumbling to his feet and assuming a fighting posture. His hair, shorter and styled, unlike his father`s, overhung his slightly bruised, more than a bit bloodied face in the process, blackening as he fell from Super Saiyan due to a lack of energy to sustain it.   
  
"My _name_, as you so politely asked, is Sailor Pluto. Welcome to the entrance or exit of the Tunnel of Time, depending on your point of view," the woman replied with a low bow. "Where am I?" He asked while straightening up and rubbing the side of his head. "When, you mean?" The woman asked. "Whatever," Goten grumbled. "The 30th century."   
  
"_Shit_!" Goten growled, dropping to his knees. "25th to 20th to 30th... How the hell do these things happen to me?" He cursed, slamming his hand into the tiling and getting back to hisfeet with a huff. "Don`t tell me I have to go in there _again_?!" Goten demanded, a visible twitch forming on the right side of his mouth. "How many times... You know, to hell with it, I`m not asking again," he grumbled out, stumping from the exit of the tunnel and steeling himself for another run at it before he felt the woman`s staff press against his collarbone. "You might want to hold that thought," Pluto advised with a smirk. "Your injuries are too severe to go jumping through there a third time with no magics or technology to guide and protect you," she stated.   
  
Goten sneered at the mirror image of himself visible in the water-like entrance of the tunnel. "I have too many people counting on me lady, move the stick or I move it for you," he threatened, glaring over at Pluto. "Are you in a rush to die? This is time you wish to violate in order to protect your own home, time yeilds only to those with the magics or the technology to navigate it properly," she chastised him sharply. Goten snorted. _"Vegeta and Trunks were too cautious too... And now I gotta find Bra before **she** gets lost too,"_ he grimaced at the thought of his adopted sister winding up in some ancient stone age, not because it could hurt her, but because of the havoc she could inspire without even trying. Bad enough the girl had her mother`s ego and mind, she had her father`s power and her brother`s sword.   
  
A bad combination by any means. "... I`ll give you five seconds," Goten began. The woman rolled her eyes and shouted, but it wasn`t audible. It was a dead scream*, one that threw Goten back and smashed him face first into a wall, which he promptly slid down to where he was leaned against it, a few new bruises covering his face. Anger drove him back to his feet, anger propelled his power back up with the hidden potential that all the Son children possessed, and anger forced him back through the rigors of super saiyan, a golden aura and a wave of power flaring off of him as he turned around and wiped his face off.   
  
Pluto stood there, unphased aside from her hair being thrown back as if by a strong wind. He skirt was barely ruffled by it. "Don`t make me drop a Spirit Bomb or a Chou Kame Hame Ha here, just move," he advised threateningly. Pluto remained unphased. "A Spirit Bomb will do nothing to this place, Crystal Tokyo is filled with only good. A Chou Kame Hame Ha will kill everyone and blow up the entrance to the tunnel," she explained. Goten`s threat faded as quickly as it had been made. He could kill the woman alright, no doubting that, but in doing so he would also be killing too many innocents. Enough had died in his lifetime and he wasn`t eager to see anymore go down.   
  
"... And if I just blew you away without harming anything else?" He asked. Pluto stifled a chuckle. "You`ll end up becoming my successor until I`m reborn again. Which means you`ll be forced to wear the skirt and put on lipstick," she calmly lied. It was enough to calm the man down though, the thought of being shoved into a short skirt and forced to wear lipstick wasn`t one that appealed to Goten. At all. "Then what in the _hell_ do I have to do to get by you?" He demanded.   
  
Pluto shrugged.   
  
"I`m the Gaurdian of Time," she answered. "You don`t unless I or my King and Queen feel the need for it," she explained a second later. Goten bit into his cheek and thought. _"Why is it I couldn`t have been as smart as they said Gohan was?"   
  
Cut myself free willingly  
Stop just what's killing me  
  
_ It was early evening now as Gohan set down at the edge of the pond, contented with dinner but still busy in thought. "You can go do whatever you do when you`re not needed," he told the Nimbus, which puffed up briefly and then darted off into the skies. A funny thing about the Nimbus was that it loved to do what it always did, it loved to fly around mostly without purpose. The Nimbus lived alone now, it had lost it`s flock the day a young teen by the name of Goku had claimed ownership of it. The Nimbus missed it`s flock, few people would understand the emotion though, but it was content with being able to subside solely on eating other clouds. The Nimbus was a unique type of carnivore, it ate it`s pray by flying through a normal cloud and absorbing a tunnel right through it. The funny thing was that in packs it usually operated like an Orca Pod, driving the cloud into a tighter ball and then sweeping through it.   
  
A part of wild life that would never be understood as having originated as a joke by a former Kami on slave drivers and those like them.   
  
Gohan quietly opened up his backpack and removed the roll-type sleeping bag, unrolling it onto the ground with a slight yawn before pausing in mid-motion. It felt as though something had just gone wrong. Not wrong in the sense of evil, or wrong in the sense that it could have been prevented, it just felt wrong.   
  
That`s when he heard the roar of an explosion a few hundred yards away. His camp site had been set up at the mouth of a sea-feeding stream, and a canyon had been carved out by some ancient cataclysm or another. Legends persisted that the place had once been some successful city or another, and an old archaeological expedition had once found signs of civilization here. That didn`t matter much though, just a helpful fact. _"The explosion came from up there,"_ he thought while unsheathing the Power Pole and bending his legs. He could sense a high power and a moderate power, the latter of which was beginning to gradually fade.   
  
"Nothing I can`t handle," he thought aloud, jumping straight up. A white aura enveloped him at about fifty feet, and it rapidly formed a vapor trail in his wake as he darted over the canyon wall, Power Pole in one hand, ki blast at the ready in the other. The sight that greeted him was odd at the least, a young girl, who looked like Bulma might have at his own age, possibly a few months younger, holding a sword that looked sickeningly familiar and dodging ki beams from a creature that looked passingly like a cross between Near Perfect Cell and an Oozaru, lacking on the sophistication of even Near Perfect Cell but bearing out most of the savagery of an Oozaru.   
  
The girl, to her credit, seemed to be holding her own pretty well given the sad state she looked to be in, a large wound covering her right arm, left cheek cut, face bruised, one eye blackened, a few injuries visible through her clothing and a pronounced cut across the side of her left leg. The creature seemed to be a bit banged up itself, and Gohan immediately knew which side he was on. "Power Pole extend!" He shouted out, using one hand to swing the already extending weapon down across the creature`s head with enough force to snap off part of it`s 'crown' and get it`s attention. The boy then wheeled back and threw the ki blast at it.   
  
The monstrosity raised an arm to try and shield itself from the attack, only to have the blast rip right through it`s forearm and strike it in the chest, exploding on the second impact and hurtling the now-dying creature backwards. It stood somehow, tail lashing out violently behind it until it let out another unearthly cry as it`s tail was severed cleanly.   
  
It`s head soon followed as the girl landed in a crouch, wheezing for all she was worth before collapsing to a knee with laughter echoing tiredly from her bloodied mouth. Gohan retracted and sheathed the power pole while flying down and landing next to the girl, who had almost yet to notice him before looking up. In her eyes at the moment, with the moon having risen in a way that it looked halo-like around his form, she blindly stammered out.   
  
"My gaurdian angel... Heh..."   
  
The girl fell over onto her side and passed out. Gohan blinked.   
  
_ I feel it everyday  
I feel I made my way  
I feel it swell up inside, swell up inside  
Swallowing me  
  
_ "That was odd," he mumbled to himself, staring at the girl for a few seconds before quite literally scraping her up off the ground and tossing her over his shoulder. He grabbed her sword with his free hand a few seconds later and soon descended the way back down into the canyon, an uneased sense of paranoia having crept up over him. If he had tried to sleep only a few seconds earlier he`d have been off gaurd and possibly killed by the battle the girl would`ve likely lost.   
  
Minutes passed as he placed the unconcious form down onto the ground a few feet from the river, near the spot he had intended to make a camp fire, and then, after removing the sword scabbard from her back and sheathing her sword, then placing it beside her, he nonchalantly collected some water from the river and dumped it onto the girl`s face.   
  
The response was fairly immediate, and he probably should have expected it enough to try and block, but he didn`t. Instead, Gohan found himself reeling, several yards straight in the air, as the girl`s arm had quite literally sprang straight up and smacked him in the jaw. He hovered there a few seconds before dropping down to the ground and rubbing his chin. "Ow," he complained, feeling the flesh begin to burn slightly from the feeling of pain.   
  
"That`s what you get for dumping water on me and probably _ruining_ what make-up I had on!" The girl replied harshly. "How could you stand to hurt something so pretty?!" Gohan facefaulted. "Your not wearing any make-up! And besides, you were dealing with that... Thing as long as you probably were, I doubt any water`s going to make a difference," he smugly pointed out. The girl facefaulted right back and fell over to a seated position. "When am I?" She asked defeatedly.   
  
"When are you what?"   
  
"What year is it?"   
  
"590 AW, or 769 AD depending on how you count time," Gohan answered. The girl`s jaw dropped. "I knew I wanted to get to the past but this is too far..." She mumbled. Gohan cocked his head to the side. "Who are you?" He asked finally.   
  
The girl paused briefly and spoke. "Bra Briefs," she answered. Gohan shook his head. "What great, big, evil, major, super bad threat is it **_this time_**?" He asked sardonically. Bra shut her mouth finally and sneered. "And just how are you to talk big like you actually know _why_ I`m here to begin with?" She demanded while getting to her feet. "Son Gohan, and we had about eleven or twelve months of having the future version of the guy I`m guessing was your father in some other timeline hanging around," he explained simply. "Trunks Briefs sound familiar?" He asked.   
  
She didn`t seem to notice anything after those first to words though.   
  
_ "Son Gohan? This kid is Son Gohan? This kid is Goten`s big brother?!"_ She thought, jaw again beginning to drop open. Gohan frowned, this would take longer than he thought. "Something wrong?" He asked. Bra shook her head. "_You`re_ Son Gohan?" He shrugged. "That`s me," he answered. "Shouldn`t you be a little taller?" She asked, head tilting to the side. "I`m guessing you were aiming for when I was older... I`m only twelve going on thirteen right now," he answered. "Oh, sorry," Bra mumbled in reply.   
  
"What are you doing out here, anyway?" Gohan asked while getting to his feet and walking around her. A quick crackle later, a campfire had been lit up and he had sat down beside it. Bra had scooted around to face him by the time he had sat himself down. "Long story..." She muttered. "I have three months to listen to it," he casually replied.   
  
_ It can't be frightening if you've never felt it  
Once it's been dealt with you feel like you've been touched by something angelic  
  
_ "Well... Let me see if I can remember all of this..." Bra paused and took in a deep breath. "It started when the Son Gohan of my time vanished without a trace a few years before I was born. He was a legend in my timeline, defeated Cell, Dabura, and others, but one day he just vanished. Not a trace of him. His younger brother was one of the last people to see him, but Goten always felt he`d be back someday. Then, about five years after I was born, something strange happened to my father," she paused, noticing Gohan`s apprehensive stare off to the side. "What?"   
  
"Goten?"   
  
"That`s your younger brother`s name." Gohan gave a nod. "Keep going."   
  
"Anyway, Piccolo was the first to notice it. He and my dad had been training Goten and my big brother, Trunks, to take the reigns as protectors of the Earth almost from the time they could walk right. Goten seemed to be naturally stronger than Trunks by far though, and my dad didn`t really like that much but he put up with it. Eventually though, something strange happened to my dad. He just woke up one day and snapped, he had an 'M' on his forehead and it looked like eyeshadow around his eyes, some veins were bulged up on his arms and neck, and his face, and his power had risen so much that nobody else could touch it. Goten, my brother and Piccolo were all unwittingly the first victims he had," she paused, wincing somewhat. "I can guess from there about your brother and Piccolo," Gohan said. Bra gave a nod.   
  
"Thanks. So, Goten got away by using some of that hidden power and some skills he acquired out of no where, injured my dad badly. But my dad just kept coming and eventually, West Capital went out in a gigantic fireball. Goten barely got me out of the way," she paused. "My mother wasn`t so lucky. We ended up running to Mount Paozu but Vegeta followed us and destroyed the entire area. ChiChi and the Ox King both died but Goten and I managed to get out by the skin of our teeth. From there, we just kept running, my dad always a step or two behind us, and eventually we made our way to a place that I can`t really describe, but we were met by an old woman named Uranai Baba. She said she`d waited there for three hours for us to show up, then told us of an ancient passage through time that lay out in Tokyo. Strange thing was that she didn`t charge us for telling either, just said we were fated so why bother making us pay?"   
  
Gohan gave a nod. "We got to the tunnel only to find it gaurded by some strange woman who didn`t identify herself. She put up a good fight despite being weak compared to me alone, let alone a super saiyan like Goten. Somehow though, she just kept hurting us both without doing it with ki, but we eventually just broke past her and fled into the tunnel." She took a deep breath again. "And that`s where we got lost. First we ended up in Tokyo itself back in the twentieth century, then we spent a month or so fighting the things there alongside some group of girls we never got the names of, then we managed to get back into the passage without having to slug it out with the woman who had been gaurding it, and then we got lost from each other. I don`t know where Goten ended up, but I ended up being chased by some demon or another through the tunnel until I ended up here and you know the rest."   
  
"Long story," Gohan commented. "Yeah," Bra agreed, adding a nod a few seconds later. "Why did you come back?" Gohan asked. "To find a way to prevent my dad going insane, or to find you. You were at age fifteen when you vanished, not even Dende knew where you went off to," she explained. "Well," Gohan started, motioning towards the sleeping bag while lying down on the ground. "You found me, now get some rest. You look like you could use it," he stated before promptly going to sleep.   
  
Bra frowned.   
  
_ And then melted down into a pool of peace  
Cease to be the animal you used to be  
Remove the broken parts you know were wrong  
And feel the karma when the problem's all gone  
And then you start to see another piece of yourself that you can't let be  
  
_ The passage in time is a unique fluke of nature, another creation by a god. Not just _any_ god mind you, but rather, the original Dai Kaioshin, the woman that had created the entire universe with a thunderous explosion that had killed her, destroyed her foe and left several followers grievously injured. The Kaioshins and the Kaios all recovered and the universe moved on, of course, but the first Dai Kaioshin`s legacy was created when her spirit drifted to a little world everyone was convinced would never bear any significance at all due to it`s positioning in relation to the rest of it`s own galaxy, let alone that galaxy`s relation to the positioning of everything else in the universe. The spirit had settled into a nice spot at the beginning of the place`s creation, and then died. While a spirit death usually means forced reincarnation for most souls, the Dai Kaioshin`s spirit`s death meant something a bit less conventional. Time itself cracked at that point until a tunnel reaching from the beginning of infinity to the end was created, and eventually, a Gaurdian was assigned.   
  
Setsuna Meiou had been assigned as the 14th Gaurdian of the Passage through Time, giving her a billion years to learn the tricks of the trade and understand them for what they were. It was about as long as anyone could ever be expected to face, and given the rigors enforced upon those involved, it left little time for an actual life.   
  
Setsuna scoffed in the face of that little tradition though, a former full-time college student and later an actual fashion designer, Setsuna had fullfilled her own wants in that lifetime. That was a long time ago, today she stood before a young man, bloodied and half-crazed from battle rage, who was on a mission to save a girl he`d adopted as a sister and to save the lives of billions.   
  
And Setsuna had to turn him down. For now. The laws of Gaurdianship could rarely be broken, the Passage itself made sure of it. The one time she had done such a thing it had gotten her killed. For now, she would have to bide by those laws and force him away until the time was right. Time dictated itself, the Passage was vengeful to those who broke it`s laws, and those laws told Setsuna to wait. Too early and he`d die trying to get back in, too late and his role in the fate of Crystal Tokyo would be offset too much. She didn`t even want to think of the other parts of the laws that she would soon have to abide by.   
  
"Let me through," Goten growled for the umpteenth time. "I can`t do that," Setsuna replied with that air of professionalism her job required. "Then let me knock you out and say you didn`t have a choice," Goten suggested. "Concussions aren`t my thing," Setsuna shrugged. Goten twitched visibly.   
  
"Just wait, you have a few days here in Crystal Tokyo and you should spend them wisely. Like for one, you should take a bath," Setsuna pointed out. Goten hung his head. "Days like this make me wish I`d just died and gone to Otherworld," he grumbled. "You wouldn`t have made it, your soul is still a bit blighted by your past life," Setsuna reminded him. Goten`s head shot up. "What?" He asked. "I didn`t say anything," she lied. "... Remind me to smack your teeth out sometime," he grumbled. "No thanks."   
  
_ And that reason will last fight to free yourself  
Take it to the depths of the bottom of the well  
And now you know you can choose to lose the part in your heart  
Where your insides bruise  
  
_ Early evening in Tokyo, 2001, the twenty-first century, on a Saturday night on December 30th. Three girls and a young man walked down the street, a very weird looking grouping to say the least, given the off-nature of the appearance of the two young girls, the clutzy way the older girl walked and the fact that the man looked essentially like the kind of guy mothers wanted their daughters to marry. Mamoru Chiba, Usagi Tsukino, a girl calling herself Chibi Usa and another girl called Hotaru Tomoe, a motley looking grouping compared to most that wandered the streets of Tokyo, but still a tight bunch to say the least. At least three of them were, Hotaru`s only real tie-in was Chibi Usa, the two were close to inseperable.   
  
Then there was also the strange trio of cats that walked alongside the group. "Busy day," Mamoru observed bluntly, watching traffic ease up enough to where it moved again. "Yeah, it never is very quiet around Christmas," Usagi flatly replied, dodging a signpost and bumping into Mamoru`s side in her usual grace-lacking manner. He didn`t seem to notice the clumsiness of the girl too much, instead sliding an arm around her waist. Hotaru remained fairly quiet, which wasn`t surprising given her nature, but at the same time actually was pretty surprising given that not only was it only a few days after Christmas, and one day before New Year`s, but it was also only a week before Hotaru`s birthday.   
  
The two adults of the group, along with Chibi Usa, had decided to take the girl shopping in advance since they didn`t really know what to get her. She would soon be twelve years old, technically close to a decade older but due to the rebirth effect of the attack she had used to save the world once, she had been reborn. Silent as ever, she finally spoke up as politely as she could, motioning towards the bookstore a few feet ahead of them. "How about that one?"   
  
Chibi Usa gave a nod. "You should start drawing sometime," the pink haired girl exclaimed while walking with Hotaru towards the store. Mamoru and Usagi followed, though the cats resigned to sitting outside the door and chatting amongst themselves. It was strange that nobody seemed to notice that there were three cats - one of which was _pink_ - chatting it up like an ordinary family outside the door of a book store as the group of people vanished inside.   
  
Tokyo was such a _normal_ place these days...   
  
_ You can live if you're willing to  
Put a stop to just what's killing you  
  
_ Goten popped his jaw a few times in annoyance and settled himself against a pillar, sliding down to a seated position and resting his head in his hands. "How is it this keeps happening to me?" He grumbled dejectedly, soon falling unconcious from the battle wounds incurred during his own run-ins with the tunnel`s demons. They weren`t demons, really, more like the tunnel`s equivelent to white blood cells. Goten and Bra had made the mistake of entering without the Gaurdian`s consent, without magics and without the technology.   
  
It was that simple. "You rush in headlong and practically beg for it," Pluto muttered under her breath before turning back to the entrance of the tunnel and waiting.   
  
_ Cut myself free willingly  
Stop just what's killing me  
_  
Rei Hino stood patiently as things happened at a calmly chaotic pace in the train station. The girl had spent enough of her life being waited on that patience had yet to finish becoming one of her better virtues, but this time, just this once, she had managed to truly master it. At least when it came to the person she was waiting on. Minako had walked with her to this place some twenty minutes earlier and departed after that, the result of needing to be present with Makoto and Ami to do something or other, Rei hadn`t heard exactly what, but at the moment she wasn`t exactly concerned with it.   
  
Another train rolled in. Was this the one she had been waiting for? Rei paused, she had let her hopes up enough in the past twenty minutes only to have it essentially crushed when the wrong train came in.Yuuichirou`s train hadn`t showed up yet and she was at the edge of just leaving and walking home, but this train had something about it that made Miss Hino`s sixth sense tingle a bit. Either that or the butterflies in her stomach were telepathic, either way it made her feel compelled to stay.   
  
And that was when the door yanked open and a few people flooded out. The crowds weren`t surprising, though the figure of the young man that stepped out certainly was. It appeared as though he had endured a growth spurt or two and hit the gym at least once a week now but at heart he was obviously the same old Yuuichirou Kumada that had left the Shrine roughly six years earlier, as demonstrated by the clutzy way he stumbled out of the train while still managing to hold onto his suitcase. "I`m home!" She could hear him laugh out gleefully, bringing a smirk onto her face. Several minutes passed as Yuuichirou stumbled his way around in the crowds, avoiding being crushed several times, before Rei watched him stagger backwards and eventually smack headfirst into the concrete wall directly beside her.   
  
"Ow," Yuuichirou grumbled. Rei noted his voice had gotten a bit deeper, and she spoke quite bluntly a few seconds later. "Still the same old Yuuichirou that left the Shrine, huh?" She asked in as gently mocking a tone as she could manage. In all honesty, she was struggling not to tackle the guy and hug him until he turned blue. "Rei?" He mumbled out before looking to his side and spotting her. His mouth hang open slightly for a few seconds before he dropped his suitcase and broke the air for the both of them, lifting Rei from the ground and hugging her as tightly as he could. Six years had apparently not been enough to get rid of a love-jones that had been present, for one of them anyway, from the first time they had seen one another.   
  
And for perhaps the first time, Rei reflected that emotion and hugged Yuuichirou back without even bothering to hold anything in check.   
  
_ I feel it everyday  
I feel I made my way  
I feel it swell up inside, swell up inside  
Swallowing me  
  
_ "Remind me not to sleep on a rockbed like that again," Gohan grumbled while prying bits of dirt and sand from his cheek. Bra snored in response. It was early morning, the sun wouldn`t rise for another few minutes so he decided to let her sleep. The fire had died out but that was alright, Gohan didn`t feel very effected by weather these days. He didnt bother calling the Nimbus as he again tossed the Power Pole onto his back and jumped up and over the wall of the canyon, landing with a thump as a wave of dust was thrown around him.   
  
The body of the monster from last night was present, though it had somehow decayed to the point that only the skeleton remained, that and what looked like oil puddled up around that. The smell wasn`t too pleasant, but Gohan had endured worse than that, it wasn`t much of a bother. He walked by the body, careful to avoid slopping in the liquidy substance, and came to a stop before what looked like a staircase. It had the footprints of the creature burned into the ground and it looked like an entrance into some underground temple.   
  
Gohan quietly, cautiously, walked the way down the steps, pausing at a pile up of rubble that had no-doubt been formed by the fight that had occured the previous night. He could feel a vague power coming from within, and then, after that, what could only be described as a black hole of ki. He couldn`t feel anything, not energy, not even existence. It was like something he could only barely describe as actually even being there, it felt wrong and right at the same time. Gohan was curious because of it, and that curiosity was begging him to dive through the rocks and rush inside head-on.   
  
Down in the canyon though, Bra had finally woken up. She was still a bit of a mess, but the previous night had given her time to swipe one of Gohan`s spare douji outfits, the lightest one she could get to be exact. She kept her own boots, and her belt, leaving the weighted overshirt behind and sporting the two-sizes-too-big blue shirt and the orange pants as her own. She of course had the slice the pants a bit to be short in the leg enough to fit her, but that was beside the point. Tossing her sword over her shoulder, Bra darted from the ground rapidly and followed her senses to where Gohan likely was, surprised and yet expectant of the fact he would stumble on this place.   
  
"You wake up too soon, you know that?" Bra asked while touching down a few feet behind Gohan. "You would be one to talk," came his reply as he felt the walls, ignoring the sounds of her feet tapping against the stairs on the way down. "Why bother being subtle? The only one in there doesn`t really care if people decide to just let themselves in," Bra stated placing a hand to the wall and then shouting. Gohan was unimpressed by her lack of finesse, or subtlety for that matter, but he didn`t say anything. The wall shattered to reveal the grand hall of what looked like some ancient temple, one person standing at the maw of what looked like some upturned pool of black and green water.   
  
"I was wondering when you two would show up," the woman stated, looking over her shoulder at the two pre-teens with stoic look that made Gohan think of Piccolo. The greenish tint of her hair also reminded him of the Namek, but he didn`t say anything. "You again?" Bra muttered in disbelief. "Still, actually," the lady replied. Bra eased forward, Gohan on the other hand, shrugged and walked ahead without pause, moving down the steep seventy foot staircase and down to the main floor. Bra growled and jumped the way after him. "Hold up, we had to fight her to get through the first time!" Bra yelled out. Gohan paused. "Something in that tunnel is screaming at me to go in there," he stated. Bra blinked as the woman stepped aside. "He has a fate to attend to and you`re out of place here, you may both move through," Setsuna stated calmly.   
  
Bra grabbed Gohan by the shoulder and held him back. "How do we know it isn`t a trap?" She demanded. "If it was," Setsuna paused, looking at the two of them and focusing on Gohan. "You`d likely be fighting for your lives by now," she finished. Gohan looked over to Bra with a neutral expression. "I trust her. What about you?" Despite having only known one another for a few hours at best, only part of which was actually being concious, Bra was hard pressed to make much of a choice. Gohan had that same convincing quality that Goten did. "I don`t like this," she grumbled before letting go of his shoulder. She was still hurting but another run wouldn`t be hard.   
  
Hopefully. At least if they had the permission this time the demons might not chase them. If they did, she and Gohan could probably handle them. "You don`t have to," Setsuna reminded her before motioning towards the passage. The two of them looked at one another again and then swiftly walked inside, one feeling uneased, the other feeling downright paranoid. Setsuna shook her head at them and then looked back towards the staircase out of here.   
  
_ Alive in me, inside of me, a part of me screams away silently  
This part of me won't go away, part of me won't go away  
  
_ Hotaru felt something jar at her senses but remained quiet as ever, gliding through the aisle before finding a book entitled "Historical Realities of the Roman Empire." It wasn`t the most exciting title, but given that it was perhaps the best book she could find blending her favorite subject and her favorite hobby, she could deal with it. A few minutes later, the group emerged from the bookstore to find two snoring cats and a chargrinned pink kitten trying to wake them up. Mamoru scooped both of the adults up and laid them over his shoulders while Chibi Usa swiped the youngest cat up. Hotaru remained quiet aside from the occasional yes or no answer to questions about having fun or if she was hungry or ready to go home, things of that nature.   
  
And that`s when she felt another jar at her senses, this one shared by Chibi Usa and Usagi both, all three of them almost unanimously glancing towards Tokyo Tower. "Did you feel something?" Mamoru asked cautiously, leering off to the side as he did so. All three gave a nod but only Usagi spoke. "Yes," she muttered.   
  
_ Everywhere I look around I see how everyone aught to be  
Every time I see myself I see there's always something wrong with me  
  
_ Hotaru shook her head. _"I guess a normal life isn`t really an option. Again,"_ she thought, catching that nigh-prophetic look that Chibi Usa and Usagi both had at times. "A new enemy?" Mamoru asked. "I don`t know," Usagi replied. "Want to check it out?" Chibi Usa asked. "I gave up that part of my life," Mamoru replied. "Go ahead without me, I`ll get the others," he stated before Hotaru turned to him, handing him her book. Mamoru gave a nod. "I`ll see that it`s at our house when you get back," he promised before darting off down the street while the three girls began to walk towards the tower. "Feels like something lost in time," she observed. She knew the feeling personally.   
  
_ I feel it everyday  
I feel I made my way  
I feel it swell up inside, swell up inside  
Swallowing me  
  
_ Gohan was awed by the inside of the passage way, as well as the hundreds of creatures he could see clinging to the "walls" of it, and the thousands he could sense off in the distance. It was infinite, all encompassing and yet it was barely even there at the same time. Bra seemed less impressed and a bit more worried. "What now?" She asked. Gohan looked to her with that unfathomable expression once more and spoke simply. "I don`t know. Something`s just telling me to get moving forward," he replied. Bra grimaced. "This isn`t right, Goten and I were lost here for... I don`t know how long, but we were," she said. "Doesn`t matter. Somethings just telling me to move forward so that`s what I`m going to do," Gohan replied. Bra frowned but shook her head. "She said something about your fate so go ahead," she finally replied. Gohan ignited an aura of silver around himself and then yelled out as his hair, black as night like his eyes, shot out about an inch, becoming visibly heavier in the process as a golden color shot through it. A matching aura flared from his feet and his eyes faded to a cold jade.   
  
Bra facefaulted. "I thought only dad, Trunks and Goten could do that!" She yelled out in surprise. Gohan smirked. "You can too, you just need to get stronger and then get emotionally yanked over the edge," he replied. "You might want to hold onto me, you won`t be able to keep up otherwise," Gohan stated. Bra did as told, locking her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck from behind after moving the Power Pole out of the way.   
  
A few seconds later, the two shot up off the 'ground' and darted towards whatever destiny had planned for them, and what an odyssey it would be...   
  
_

End Part One  


* * *

  


_ **Author`s Note:** * = I have no freaking clue how the Dead Scream is supposed to work, nor do I have much of a clue about Setsuna or the Passage through time(though I know I probably portrayed both at least slightly inaccurately(definately when it comes to how the passage is shown)).  
  
Ah well, hope I didn`t rush anything, enjoy the fic and leave a review!  
  



	2. Fuel

  
**Author`s Note:** Welcome to the second part Evolution, and the first part of HT since Lake of Fire to use something other than a Linkin Park song. Enjoy!  
  
**Disclaimer:** Don`t own it, don`t know **why** we have to do these either... Friggin` copyrights e.e  
  


* * *

  
**

Hybrid Theory: Evolution   


**_Fuel  
  
  
  
_ In his own time, the man known by the name of Son Goten was considered a messiah by the peoples, the only man who had successfully stood against the force known as Vegeta. In his own time, he had fought against against his father`s arch-enemy time and again, losing every battle in the grand scheme of things but learning new tactics, new skills and gaining strength with all of them. The first time he`d fought Vegeta, he couldn`t hurt him. Now? Seventeen battles later, he could bloody Vegeta`s nose or if he was lucky, crack a few of the former Prince`s ribs. In his own time, Son Goten was always having live urgently, for the moment. In his own time, he never had to wait, because waiting was almost always suicidal at best.   
  
In his own time.   
  
In this alien time, in this supposed utopia, the formerly bloodied, formerly half-dead, formerly half-mad Son Goten found himself waking up in a hospital. An honest-to-god _hospital_. His clothes, the douji he always wore, rested on a nightstand a few inches from his bed, in plain sight. The sun shone in a dull orange light, hardly adequate in the long run to serve as illumination, but for now, it would do. His eye sight made up for the gaps in the actual lighting.   
  
The room was mostly empty aside from a chair at the foot of the bed, the nightstand, his bed, and a letter resting on the window sill, an envelope sealed by what looked like a golden crscent shaped stamp. The door was shut, thankfully. Hospital gowns didn`t exactly conceal parts of oneself that should have been covered. Goten spent several seconds rummaging through the bundle of clothing before finding his boxers, quickly yanking them on and tossing aside the gown. Mere moments passed as the noticably tired second son of Goku stumbled around in the hospital room, bouncing from wall to wall on one foot trying to get his pants, boots and socks all on, but he eventually succeeded in doing so, tossing on his shirt, overshirt, wrist bands and belt seconds afterward.   
  
A solid twenty seconds of stretching and smacking himself awake and the young man swiped the letter with a charginned expression, promptly shredding the envelope and letting the pieces litter the floor. He then read the note.   
  
_

Welcome to Crystal Tokyo. By request of Sailor Pluto, you have  
been granted time at a local hospital. Please be careful, we`ve  
rebuilt this city twice and aren`t in any hurry to do it again.  
Regards, King Endymion and Queen Serenity.  
  


"Oh... Goody, royalty. What next, a parade of fuzzy, lovey, pink things through the streets?" _Goten asked himself, crumpling the note up and chucking it over his shoulder while forcibly opening the door. By luck rather than intention, it didn`t shatter from the force exerted, though Goten soon found himself regretting his prior comment.   
  
The streets were filled with pink floats on the day of a parade.   
  
Goten glared up into the skies, almost hearing the familiar sound of a Namek, snickering. "I hate you. In _every_ timeline, I freaking _**hate**_ you," he uttered, fairly certain Dende, by now something of a trickster god, would hear him.   
  
_ Gimme Fuel, gimme fire  
Gimme that which I desire  
Ooh! Turn on...  
I see red  
  
_ Bra Briefs had been brought up, at least during the time when both her parents were alive and her father had yet to go insane, with the strongly instilled belief that she was a princess. A strongly instilled belief that nothing bad, no matter how deserved one someone`s eyes, should happen to her. Also, she was brought up with the belief that the Son Gohan her father, older brother and mother all spoke of on occasion had been raised with nothing but good running through him, aside from his higher power compared to her own father, she was raised to believe that there was nothing to hate of him. In the past - well, she couldn`t really calculate how long it had been, Time didn`t exist as she could understand in this area - while, she had come to learn that at least one of these aspects of her upbringing had been deathly wrong.   
  
At the present - if it even existed here - she had found quite a few things to utterly despise about Gohan. The primary among these being that he had just charged headlong through the skies of this no-longer infinitely wide tunnel. At least she thought it was a tunnel, her eyes had been squeezed shut so long that she`d lost her bearings even worse than before.   
  
For some reason, he didn`t suffer that problem at all. "I hate you," Bra grumbled out. "No you don`t, if you did, you`d`ve stabbed me at least once by now," Gohan replied. "... That makes a difference, _how_?" She asked. "Good point," he conceded after a long pause. "I`m a Princess nimwit, we`re always right," she scoffed. "Yeah, you`re a princess nimwit alright," Gohan snickered out. "Of cou... Hey!"   
  
The two carried on even as Gohan glided to what seemed like the roof of the tunnel, only to pass right through it and into an area that looked eerily similar to a three dimensional map of the human genome made of nebula-like strings of clouds, a wide, twisting bar, looking tornado-like to him, running through the center of the map. Gohan`s mind couldn`t interpret it any other way, and if it wasn`t for that _thing_ at the edge of his senses, he`d probably have stopped to awe at it, he`d have probably been impressed by it.   
  
Not today. Not now anyway. Whatever it was at the edge of his senses, it forced him on with a constant seriousness that nothing in his life, _nothing whatsoever_, could quite rival. It simply yelled at him to keep moving, it kept him on the right track. So far, everything he had done, every path he had taken, every turn he had made, had been the easiest way to achieve their journey through time. He almost thought, at one point early in the move, that he had seen Mirai Trunks` time pod on it`s way back.   
  
He had also thought he`d seen Bra fleeing that tunnel creature he had first seen far earlier, but that was to be expected. He could almost feel something else too, something truly familiar and truly different at the same time, moving back on the opposite side of the outside of the tunnel to get to where he himself had first entered.   
  
Gohan knew he didn`t really like this place anymore by now. Time didn`t make sense here.   
  
It was weird.   
  
_ Adrenaline crash and crash my head  
Nitro Junkie, paint me dead  
And I see red  
  
_ Goten grimaced as he rounded the corner. He had seen happy places before, lived in them as well, but _this_ place took every cake he could ever eat in his lifetime, his father`s two or three lifetimes, his brother`s lifetime and the lifetimes of his mother, uncle, grandfathers, grandmothers and his great grandfather combined and multiplied by six. Plus his best friend`s entire family.   
  
And then some.   
  
He almost had a damned tooth ache from the sweetness of this place, the scary part being that this was all too real, it wasn`t fake happiness, this place had come to be like this somehow and he envied, despised and wanted to get the hell out of it all at once because of it. Not a single person here seemed unhappy at all. It was too perfect. Far too perfect, and even if it was only _just_ perfect, it`d be too perfect for his tastes.   
  
Goten was an anti-perfectionist philosopher. Perfection was flawed, it held nothing left to strive for. Life was made solely to strive for one`s goals, in his views. A very negative set of views they were, as well, considering how he had been forced to gain emotional adulthood so quickly at such a fairly early age. His senseis would accept no less than for Goten to be as good as his brother, better if possible.   
  
He hated them for it. It was necessary, true, but that didn`t mean they should`ve done it to him from the age of three to when Vegeta had snapped when Goten turned fifteen. From that day he`d had to fill the increasingly large shoes of the protector of the Earth. The experience had left him a fairly negative person.   
  
And if you didn`t like that, he wasn`t above telling you to kiss his ass until your lips bruised.   
  
Goten rounded a corner quickly, feeling a pair of eyes on him for a brief time before doing so. He didn`t blend in here, it didn`t take a genius to figure that out, but it seemed most people didn`t really care. Goten continued to move, speed walking now before arriving at a bridge.   
  
What he had expected was nothing, just an empty bridge. Instead, a man wearing a strange looking mask greeted him, wearing what looked like a combination of a regal knight`s armor, a tuxedo and a cape. While most would justifiably believe the outfit looked pretty good on him, Son Goten, being the darkened, jaded cynic time had made him, held a decidedly different view at the smiling man.   
  
"Just what kind of crack were you smoking when you decided to put _that_ on?" He asked. The fellow blinked several times before shaking his head and brushing the comment off. "This from the one wearing an orange-blue douji with his hair spiked up like a rapper," the fellow replied. "Touché," Goten commented dryly. "Anyway, I was wondering when you would arrive," the man stated with a return of his smile. "What are you people? Psychics on prozac?"   
  
"... I`ll ignore that comment," the other answered. "Since you aren`t the formal type, just call me Endymion." Goten gave a nod. "Goten, Son, Son Goten, any`ll do but call me airbrain and I`ll introduce your internal organs to the nearest lightpost," he replied. "I`ll remember that. Kami`s friend?" He asked. "Something like that," a new voice introduced itself as an aged looking, somewhat wrinkle skinned alien, essentially a somewhat thicker built twin to the Earth`s previous Kami, stepped into view, literally from no where. "Gee, you got old fast," Goten mumbled.   
  
"Unlike you, I`ve spent a thousand years without jumping through time to do something or other. Let`s see how wrinkle-free _you_ become at my age," Dende commented with a smirk. "... Let`s not. I`d like to die peacefully with only a few scars to mar my prettyboy looks," Goten commented as sarcastically as possible. "Most likely you will," Dende uttered. Endymion finally interrupted them. "Greetings Kami," he said with an obvious respect to the other. "Hello, King Endymion," Dende replied. "I`ll take it from here. I think your wife has a few things to talk with you about, mainly since she`s pregnant with your second child."   
  
Endymion paled and quickly gave a deep bow, fleeing towards the palace at the center of the city, a gigantic crystal tower, as quickly as his legs could carry him. Dende let out a smug chuckle. "He always falls for that."   
  
"Anyone else ever tell you, you became one hell of an asshole with old age?" Goten quipped. "And you`re really Mister Sunshine, hm?" Dende replied. "... Why, yes. Yes I am. You wanted something, now out with it," he replied. Dende shook his head. "So impatient..." Goten visibly looked half ready to rip off Dende`s antennae. "I have people counting on me Dende, a lot of people counting on me. What the fuck do you expect?"   
  
"Nothing less. Or nothing more, really depends on your point of view but that isn`t why I came, is it?"   
  
"Korin shared the Senzu Weed with you, huh?"   
  
"There isn`t such a thing."   
  
"Suuuuure..."   
  
"Whatever," Dende grumbled. "I came here to give you what you`ll need to get through the tunnel even without Setsuna`s permission," he stated. Goten immediately raised a brow. "She only bows to her needs and that of the royals in charge o` this dump," he stated curiously. "True, but being the Kami has it`s advantages," Dende replied, walking forward and then, in a flash of movement that Goten could barely catch, smacking the other over the forehead with his staff.   
  
Goten fell back, muttering every form of profanity he could think of as a visible glow permeated from his forehead, right where the Kami had struck him. "What the hell was that for?!" He yelled out as Dende turned away and laughed to himself. "Go to the temple, it`s just beneath the Palace. Setsuna will know to let you through," the god replied before exploding into a bolt of golden lightning and streaking off into the skies, leaving the symbol of Kami burned into the ground in his wake.   
  
Goten cussed loudly and threw his hand into the railing of a the bridge, shattering it into dust before walking in the direction that Endymion had taken off in earlier.   
  
_ One hundred plus through  
Black and white  
War worse, warhead, fuck 'em man  
White knuckles tight  
Through black and white  
  
_ Gohan dove back into the main tunnel as a bolt of lightning, coming from something he didn`t know of, blasted right by. "Can you fly?!" He asked. Bra yelled a yes in reply and let go, a golden aura flaring up around her, though her hair and eyes remained the same. "You a Super Saiyan yet?" Gohan asked as quiet settled through the air, or at least as quiet as it had been earlier. That distant rumbling was always present here, like thunder save that it never ended.   
  
"Not yet, but Goten say`s I`m getting close!" Bra replied proudly. "Closer than your dad was at your age, that much is for sure!" Gohan called out. Bra grinned from ear to ear in reply.   
  
"How close are we?" She asked. "Close enough that I can almost feel like I`m there," Gohan replied, looking ahead. "Looks like we have a welcoming wagon," Gohan commented dryly. Bra gave a nod, unable to see what he meant just yet until they came a little closer.   
  
That was when she saw them. They numbered in at three or four, slightly larger, obviously more grotesque versions of the creatures that she had dealt with last time she came through. "Those things are too powerful for me Gohan," she stated dreadfully. "You`re right. You`re maybe as strong as Vegeta was the first time I saw him go Super Saiyan," Gohan replied. "Real shame for them that I`m a little bit stronger than that," he commented with a smirk.   
  
Bra would`ve asked him what he had meant by that comment if he hadn`t blazed forward and attacked the lot of them head on.   
  
_ Ohhh, on I burn  
Fuel is pumping engines  
Burning hard, loose and clean  
And I burn, churning my direction  
Quench my thirst with gasoline  
So gimme fuel, gimme fire  
Gimme that which I desire  
  
_ It was four on one, Bra was convinced Gohan would die in a few short seconds. And then the first of the creatures let out a terrible scream and fell from the heavens, towards the 'ground,' only to find Gohan`s knee embedded in the back of it`s neck, a virtual golden blur as he pressed into it, beheading the creature and spinning to face it`s compatriots in the same motion. Bra could barely make out that he had pressed two fingers to his forehead, shouted something out and then threw his right hand forward, a spiraling corkscrew of an orange-purple beam erupting from within and punching a visible, foot-wide hole in the head of one of the other creatures.   
  
Gohan faded out and reappeared between the two standing creatures, legs curled under him, arms held in a cross out in front of him. With an ear splitting, almost unbelievably loud yell, he threw his arms and legs out, then fanned his hands over his face and screamed again.   
  
The second body had just fallen out of Bra`s sight as the two remaining creatures were incinerated by a lethally modified variation of the Taiyoken. Even if it wasn`t meant to anymore, the attack still left her vision blurry as Gohan signaled for her to come join him, two clouds of dust flying downward a few seconds later as her vision cleared. She was impressed, yes, but also a bit annoyed.   
  
A fifth creature, just as large as the others, but this one visibly shaking, came into view, in their path as Gohan looked over to Bra. "Piggyback again," Gohan ordered. Bra frowned and did as told.   
  
_ Hey turn on beyond the bone  
Swallow future, spit out home  
Burn your face upon the crome  
  
_ Hotaru looked around. It was obvious that Mamoru hadn`t been kidding when he said he`d get everyone, but it was also obvious he had missed _someone_ since Rei wasn`t present. Given Rei`s nature, Hotaru was somewhat worried that she would be the only one present when virtually everyone else, even the other Outers, had shown up. And speaking of the Outers, it seemed Pluto was the only one that didn`t exactly look antsy or worried.   
  
If anything, she seemed to be counting down to something.   
  
Chibi Usa noticed as well, gently poking Hotaru in the side and pointing towards Setsuna. "What`s with her?" She asked. Hotaru shrugged and gripped her Silence Glaive a bit tighter in anticipation. They had all effectively arrived at the same point at much the same time, only Setsuna had been a bit early, and only Setsuna seemed to be unnoticing of the fact the entire spot was quite empty aside from the senshi themselves.   
  
And then a few cracks of electricity surged up from the ground. "What was that?" Minako asked first, the only one quick enough to actually ask before Usagi herself could.   
  
And then, all proverbial hell seemed to break loose as a vortex of what almost looked like water cracked open the ground at the center of the town, spinning around rapidly as several cracks of lightning shot out and into the night sky. Everyone quickly drew into the ready stance as a sound equatable to a laugh and a scream echoed through the area. Then something shot up out of the vortex, an oil-like liquid following a golden aura that flashed into view faster than one could really see as more than a blur could be seen, a raucus, cheerful laugh cackling while the sound of a girl screaming bloody murder echoed with it.   
  
The boy touched down, still laughing his head off as the girl who had formerly been piggybacking on him jumped away, scraping the gunk from herself and cursing out so quickly that none of the scouts could really understand her.   
  
And then the boy fell over holding his sides. "You... You..." He exploded into further laughter, rolling around for emphasis. "It`s **_NOT FUNNY!!!_**" She screamed back at him. The boy finally seemed to gain control of himself and then got to his hands and knees, stumbling up to a support beam and then turning back around to face the girl, only to fall back over laughing like a mad man.   
  
And to be quite honest, it actually was a funny sight to behold. "You try being the battering ram through one of those damn things next time!" The girl barked out, looking fairly murderous with a large sword sheathed on her back. "Oh sweet mother of Dende..." The boy managed to wheeze out before falling back into a fit of laughter.   
  
The entire number of the senshi present promptly sweatdropped, save for Hotaru. She seemed to focus on the boy as if she knew him from somewhere, or as if she should have known him from somewhere.   
  
"Shut up!" The girl growled. "Alright, alright..." The boy coughed out, getting back to his feet and flashing an infectious grin that made even the target of his laughter crack into a smirk, albeit a very annoyed one. "Now, dear Gohan, will you _please_ tell me why you felt the need to torpedo _me_ through that fucking thing?!"   
  
"If you could see the look on your face, Bra, trust me," Gohan replied with that same grin, visibly fighting off laughter. Then Setsuna cleared her throat. "Uranus, Neptune, you two can go home if you`d like," she stated. The two shrugged and walked off, ignoring the blank stares that pretty much everyone, minus Hotaru, had started giving to Setsuna. "Oh, not you again," Bra grumbled. "Not again, still," Setsuna calmly reminded her.   
  
Bra hung her head and returned to cursing out in a very low mumble. "You really need a sense of humor," Gohan chided. "Just... Shut... Up..." Bra replied through grit teeth. "Oh yeah," Gohan started, head tilting to the side as he recognized Setsuna. "You get around, don`t you?"   
  
"You have no idea."   
  
_ Take the corner, join the crash  
Headlights, headlines   
Another junkie lives too fast  
Yeah lives way too fast  
  
_ Goten halted once he got within view of the place. It was literally hard to believe he had missed this. How had he missed seeing this thing earlier, even when he`d been running _towards_ the damn thing for the past two minutes. How? **_How in the blue hell was it possible he could have missed this?!_** "You have got to be shitting me," he uttered, staring up far enough to have to bend back a little bit to avoid craning his neck too much.   
  
This was just _wrong_ for him to have missed it. The damn thing was a crystalline tower that stood at _least_ half the height of Korin`s Tower, at _least_, and it was roughly seven times wider even at the narrowest point. A solid crystal mountain with a base that gracefully extended up several hundred feet, with the tower extending from there as one of several such extensions, the others all being a bit shorter and a bit narrower than the main. It was _insane_ to have missed seeing this damn thing, a fucking blind man wouldn`t have missed it!   
  
Goten felt pretty small in comparison. Downright miniscule really. _"Days like this make me wish I had just been aborted,"_ Goten thought to himself. "Sure they do," a voice echoed from around him. Goten shook his head and didn`t pay any further attention to it, crouching down and muttering something on the order of pounding the snot out of Dende at some point.   
  
_ On I burn, fuel is pumping engines  
Burning hard, loose and clean   
And on I burn, churning my direction  
  
_ A flash of light and Goten rocketed upward, reaching out with his senses and feeling for whatever he could. Right off the bat he sensed close to a dozen unidentified powers, at least one of which could be identified as that Endymion fellow. Judging by the way his ki had spiked up, Goten figured several things.   
  
The first? He was annoyed. The second? The annoyance was lowering. The third? Goten didn`t really know, but it felt like Endymion and someone else had decided to try and make up for Dende`s prank and have a second kid.   
  
"I`ll just tune `em out then," Goten mumbled to himself, touching down at the highest point of the tower and staring down. "If I was an oversized, ancient temple housing a passage through time, where would I be..." He thought aloud, inspecting the entire city. Beautiful place really, especially the way that they didn`t seem to need streetlights or anything of that nature since the moonlight seemed to perfectly reflect off of every point of the palace-like tower he stood upon, as well as the additional towers around it. There were still streetlights, sure, just that these seemed to be more for show than frequent use, probably for cloudy nights or something of that nature.   
  
"Utopia is a boring state to live in," Goten concluded to himself with a shrug. He finally felt it then, just an empty echo at the back of his senses.   
  
Under the tower. "... It almost figures they`d be absurd enough to put something like that under this thing," he muttered to himself before jumping up off of the tower and free falling down with a spin. Goten liked to get a good view of his surroundings on the way down, and as he came closer and closer towards that gently slope at the base of the tower, he flipped upright and extended his legs downward, taking the shock of impact easily and quickly beginning a graceless slide down as if skiing sideways or snowboarding. His boots even managing to kick up bits of crystal, he was sure it would probably scar the base on the way down but it actually made it all seem a bit more beautiful, as if tainting this thing without annihilating it was all but impossible.   
  
Still free-falling, Goten slid right off of the slope and flashed through the air, flipping once again and smacking feet first into a wall, which he eventually crouched on, extending his hand down for balance as the last bits of momentum from before faded out and gravity started taking effect.   
  
Gravity denied, Goten extended his legs rapidly and jumped from the side of the building, bounding off the ground and back into the air before landing with a run towards what he guessed to be the front door. Two gaurds were there but if they had even noticed him coming it wouldn`t have done them any good.   
  
Both were promptly blown off their feet by his backdraft as Goten slammed right through the four foot thick crystalline doors, ripping out an outline of himself in the process before skidding to a halt and crumpling up some of the enormous red rug that covered most of the floor. "Holy shit," he mumbled, staring up around the room with his jaw hanging open as if unhinged.   
  
The room was quite immaculate, to be blunt, crystalline walls, a similar staircase, the finest oak furniture, a chandalier of what looked like pure, solid gold, numerous, obviously priceless pieces of art work of what looked like on woman with minor variations in how her hair and eye color were, always only slight, until one arrived at a younger looking version of her with pinkish hair and red eyes. _"... Vain much?"_ Goten wondered.   
  
Then he recognized that in each picture there was a different man, and only in the picture of the pink haired girl was there a lack of any man at all. "What in the hell kind of egomaniacal nut house did I land in?"   
  
"Stop! You`re under arrest!" A few voices echoed from behind him. Goten felt what seemed like minor burns form up just beneath his skin and turned around, dodging a series of pinkish tinted beams from the newly recovered gaurds. They were weak, maybe only passingly above average levels in actual energy, but they weren`t relying on energy to do damage, they were using some sort of magic.   
  
It was almost similar to what that Pluto woman used. Goten decided it best to avoid killing them, instead letting out a very guided kiai at the pair and sending them flying back as if carried by a strong wind. _"Breaking in never **was** my strong point,"_ Goten mused while turning around and looking for a way to the temple. No doors and he wasn`t going to spend all night looking through what was obviously a maze, so with a tinge of regret he straightened his hand towards the ground and began speaking...   
  
"Big..." A ki ball formed in front of his hand, a visible whirl of energy picking up around him as he powered up the attack.   
  
"Bang..." A blue glow filled the room as the sphere grew in size to about equal with a large softball, cracks of energy going off around it.   
  
_ Quench my thirst with gasoline   
So gimme fuel, gimme fire  
Gimme that which I desire   
Yeah, white knuckle tight!  
  
"Hope nobody`s in the way,"_ he thought before finishing the move. "Attack!"   
  
An explosion ripped right through the floor, filling the room with smoke as Goten lowered his hand back down and mumbled an apology out to whoever could hear, hopping up and then free falling down what felt like three or four hundred feet only to be greeted by the same woman as before. Setsuna was unimpressed.   
  
"You could have just asked them to let you in, you know," she stated annoyedly. "Where`s the fun in that?" Came Goten`s reply. "Right," Setsuna rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah..." Goten pointed to his forehead, where the symbol of Kami promptly glowed into existance. Setsuna frowned. "Dende _would_ give you that kind of passage, wouldn`t he?" She asked.   
  
"How the hell am I supposed to know a god`s divine plan?" Goten replied smugly as the symbol lifted from his forehead and became something of a mark on the gate, right at it`s left base. "Go along, you`ll know when you get there and I`ll be waiting for you. Again."   
  
Goten frowned and bent his legs at the knee before jumping through the gate, right as most of the palace gaurd stormed into the chamber. "Don`t worry about him, he`s gone. Just get to work on repairs," she ordered before turning to look back at the entrance into the Passage through Time.   
  
_ Gimmie Fuel....  
On I burn, on and on   
Gimmie Fire....   
On I burn, on and on   
My Desire....   
  
_ Goten emerged into the blazing infinity of passage so large he could only passingly comprehend it, his aura firing up violently into Super Saiyan as he let his senses guide him, right towards a singular spot. It would take him a while to reach it, assuming time even had any measurement here, but that was quite alright with him. At least the tunnel demons seemed to be ignoring him as what looked like a monstrously large funeral procession began, an ethereal black spot somehow forming off on the horizon of the infinitely long, mind bogglingly large tunnel.   
  
It was enough to make even the palace from earlier seem like an ant mound compared to the Empire State Building.   
  
At best.   
  
_ Ohhh, On I Burn Fuel is pumping engines  
Burning hard, loose and clean   
And I burn   
Churning my direction  
Quench my thirst with gasoline  
  
_ He would make it though. Every fiber in his being drove him to keep moving, every ounce of his make-up screaming at him to hurry, the mission was on once again!   
  
_ Gimme fuel, gimme fire   
Gimme that which I desire   
  
_ Off in the distance, the massive funeral procession seemed to stop and scatter as an enormous figure stepped through the tunnel, a clawed demon of epic proportions. The Grand Enforcer was coming.   
  
_ Ooh On I Burn!  
  


End Part Two  
  


* * *

_  
**Author`s Note:** Hope you liked the second part(was quite fun to pick on Endymion and Dende...), leave a review!  
  
Oh yeah, if you`re wondering how Goten knows Kaio Ken, it`ll be explained later. As for some of Vegeta`s attacks; he was trained mostly by Vegeta and Piccolo. Only reason he learned a good many of his attacks was observation though...  
  



	3. Epiphany

  
**Author`s Note:** Yes... It`s finally time for a shred of semi-romance to take place!  
  
**Disclaimer:** Don`t own.  
  


**

* * *

  
Hybrid Theory: Evolution   
**_Epiphany_  


  
  
  
Time had a way with itself. For one, Time had created many a good thing, such as patience. Setsuna was a model for this virtue, the woman was a walking universal temporal paradox, she existed/exists/would exist constantly in mostly the same state for precisely a billion years. Not a single glitch, even when she had actually died. How, you ask? Setsuna Meiou had the uncanny luck/curse of being a universal paradox. She had been reincarnated while she was already alive, meaning when she had used her attack the first time, not even a nanosecond afterward, her reincarnated self had awoken to her powers and she was as she had been when she died. For roughly 37 years, Setsuna had literally existed in two places at once as the same person. It should have, and technically was impossible. But Time`s gaurdians had a leg up(literally in the leggy woman`s case) on everybody, aside from the lethally enforced block on their ability to actually pause time(which was at best a minor slap on the wrist for Setsuna), they didn`t have to follow the laws they enforced.   
  
Setsuna utilized this with precision and that virtue of true patience to accomplish the plans that would help aid her secondary function as the chief assistant of the Dai Kaioshin, though now it was just to the Kaioshin since the former overlord of the universe was gone, to drive the fate of the universe towards whatever had been planned for it. Patience, however, was not the strongpoint of some of her compatriots. In specific, Chibi Usa, Usagi and Minako, all of whom were rather annoyed that they had come here expecting to have to slug it out for the fate of the world - _again_ - only to find themselves being made to watch as two kids they didn`t know simply popped up from no where and fell into an arguement as one laughed himself half-dead.   
  
Makoto was more patient, mainly out of curiosity, though Setsuna swore she heard something about someone named Sinpai, or something like that. Ami was just patient about people, she had learned to be that way with friends like the ones she had developed in her life. Really, you were either patient with girls like Usagi and Minako around or you were going to have a ruptured vein in your forehead. Or three. It was that simple.   
  
Hotaru was either patient or shy. Setsuna paid a bit of attention to the fact that the girl had seemed to become all too still and quiet, and a bit too curious compared to her usual self. Bra, the girl had been identified as, which was a very... Well, Setsuna didn`t know what to make of her name, she`d seen the girl three or four times and she still hadn`t thought of a good or bad way to describe her name.   
  
So she stopped thinking of it and let the others ask the questions. One of the pluses of being as mysterious and quiet as Setsuna favored to be was that none of the others questioned her at length about anything. Only Ami seemed genuinely interested in the fact she was even around as more than just a distant acquaintance, or an ally in a fight, and that was solely because Ami had a burgeoning interest in the mechanics of Time.   
  
Assuming she was still being reincarnated by the date Setsuna stopped her role as the Gaurdian of Time, Ami would make a good replacement for Setsuna when she stepped down. That`s what Setsuna thought anyway.   
  
Usagi - Sailor Moon - began with the opening salvo of questions. "Who are you and why are you here?!" She demanded in as authoritative a voice as she could. Setsuna found it passingly amusing - who wouldn`t? - that someone like the future Neo Queen Serenity could be so _different_ in the past from what she was fated to be in a thousand or so years. Bra was the one to answer.   
  
"I`m Bra Briefs, he`s Son Gohan," the girl stated, regaining her composure despite the blackened slop that remained as a rather unique fashion statement. She actually had the regal manners of a Princess too, given the nature of her upbringing, Setsuna was actually a bit surprised. Probably the first surprise she`d had in centuries. "Hi there," Gohan stated with a wave at the girls. "Cute kid," Minako teased.   
  
Would`ve made him blush if not for something Setsuna had seen coming a few eons in advance.   
  
_ Your words to me just a whisper  
Your faces so unclear   
I try to pay attention  
Your words just disappear   
  
"Is that an angel?"_ Hotaru thought, making reluctant, albeit nearly forced, eye contact with the boy. Gohan on the other hand was feeling something of a mix. "Do I know you?" He finally asked, practically tuning out everyone else, and pretty much every_thing_ else with it. Hotaru shook her head. "No," she replied calmly. "Feels like I should," he mumbled with a shrug. "Yeah," Hotaru mumbled while finally looking away.   
  
"Moving along," Bra interrupted, jabbing Gohan on the arm with her elbow. "Next question?" She asked as Gohan looked off to the side with a similar embarrassed look to what Hotaru had sported.   
  
The fact he was trying to hide a blush wasn`t helped by the way Minako and Makoto were picking him apart in whispers.   
  
"You didn`t answer the 'why are you here' part," Usagi answered. "Oh... Uhm... Well, blame him," she replied, pointing at Gohan, who facefaulted in response. "Why me? It was your idea to pop up in my timeline to begin with," he grumbled. "Because your the nimwit that was hellbent on going back into the tunnel, _that`s_ why," Bra reminded him. "... Hey, you`re the one that popped into my timeline first," he replied. Bra shrugged. "So? I`m not the one who insisted on going back in," she stated. "... Okay then, I`ll explain the tunnel part but everything _before_ that is your`s. Deal?" He asked.   
  
"No. I need a shower. And a change of clothes," she grumbled. Chibi Usa was the first to make a reply, however blunt and unfriendly it was. "Ya think?" She asked sardonically. "Ya think, Pinky?" Bra quipped right back before Gohan clamped a hand over her mouth. "Last thing we need right now is an enemy, Bra. We don`t even have anywhere to stay, remember?" He asked. Bra looked as deadpan as any girl her age ever had. "Hey!" He called out while rapidly removing his hand, the palm now coated in saliva.   
  
"Should`ve seen that coming," she glared. "Now you tell them or else I`ll make sure you get that haircut you need," Bra pointed to the fairly large sword still sheathed on her back. Gohan nodded furiously. "Alright, that`ll work," he stated very quickly. "Good," Bra grinned. Gohan then began explaining things as best he could...   
  
_ 'Cause its always raining in my head  
Forget all the thing's I should have said  
  
_ Hotaru remained quiet, even though she could just barely hear Mina and Makoto whispering back and forth at a furious rate about cute pre-teen crushes. It wasn`t a crush she had on the boy, she was sure of that much. Just a burgeoning familiarity she felt she needed to understand for some reason.   
  
Idly, she listened as Gohan - she knew that was his name before even hearing the girl call him that - began to explain things. His voice, for all intents and purposes, was more mature sounding at the age of twelve than most of the adult men she had seen in her lifetime, barring a few like Mamoru.   
  
"... Okay, then we entered the tunnel-thing, I can`t really describe it very well, and after a while - I don`t even know how to describe that either since Time doesn`t really seem to exist in there - we ended up popping out here. You`ll have to ask her about the holes in the story though," Gohan finished, wiping a slight bead of sweat from his golden tinted eyebrow. "Maybe you should change back," Bra mumbled over at him. He gave a nod and his hair suddenly shorted by about an inch, becoming visibly lighter and noticably darker until it had set into it`s usual tone of midnight black, his eyes pulling off the same transition only to end with a lack of any discernable iris.   
  
Usagi blinked. So did Chibi Usa. And pretty much everyone else but Setsuna and Bra.   
  
_ So I speak to you in riddles because  
My words get in my way  
  
_ Gohan had felt nervous in his life, but right now if not for the instinctive calm drilled into him via Piccolo and his father alike, he`d have likely been a whole lot worse than he was now. "What?" He asked. "Nothing," came a mostly uniform answer from everyone but Setsuna, Bra and Hotaru. "Well... I guess if no one else is up for it, Mamoru and I could always take you on for a while. How long will you be here?" Usagi asked, essentially unconcerned with bothering to keep identities a secret since the two seemed to be good guys.   
  
A nice change too, they weren`t annoying.   
  
"Uhm," Bra stammered. Gohan seemed to be the easier to deal with of the pair, and the quicker as well. "Hey Setsuna, how long `til we go back?" He asked curiously. For the second time in one night, the woman was genuinely surprised, for the first time since taking the role of Gaurdian, she was genuinely red in the face from shock. How to answer _this_ one without giving herself away?   
  
"Whenever Time wills it," she lied with Oscar worthy skills. Her heart felt a pang of guilt in the process but Setsuna had learned long ago to ignore her emotions when it came to her work. Everyone stared briefly at Setsuna but nobody asked. "If you`ll excuse me," she started, turning around and walking off without another word.   
  
"That was weird," Makoto said for everyone.   
  
_ I smoke the whole thing to my head and feel it wash away 'cause  
I don't take anymore or this  
I want to come apart  
Or dig myself a little hole inside your precious heart   
  
"Who are you? And how do I know you?"_ Hotaru and Gohan both asked themselves.   
  
_ 'Cause its always raining in my head  
Forget all the things I should have said  
  
_ Goten looked around. The funeral procession he had been seeing when he first entered had rather abruptly been broken. The things that had been ignoring him weren`t anymore, and he could be the first to tell you as he weaved between numerous bolts and beams of pinkish death of that fact. He`d probably have told you with a good many interwoven cuss words, but that was beside the point. Survival was the game right now, survival and making it to that singular point that screamed at him in the back of his senses. Everyone of them, even taste, was yelling at him, telling him to drive onward towards it.   
  
It was a useful directional guide but when dodging planet killer-level blasts of energy from King Kong sized uglies, it wasn`t a very pleasant one. Goten rolled as another bolt flashed by him and off into infinity, and then stopped to avoid the knife-like stinger tipped tail of one of the smaller, weaker seeming creatures. It seemed there was a hierarchy to be followed, a gigantic hive-minded order to how things went. The smaller, weaker creatures, like the group he had fought through to arrive in the 30th Century, were like the foot soldiers, or the workers of the groupings. They weren`t small compared to Goten, things had to be ten or eleven feet tall at least.   
  
These were the ones that resembled more an Oozaru than what he guessed to be Imperfect(Stage Two) Cell. After them there was the variety that Goten thought of like commanding officers, or overseers, these were all a good head and shoulder-level above the others, they resembled more of Imperfect Cell than an Oozaru, and they were also a great deal stronger but a bit slower aside from their tails. After them, Goten didn`t want to guess.   
  
Another whistling miss as a second of the smaller creatures flashed by, immediately changing direction and snapping at Goten with that deathly sharp fang-filled muzzle. Goten barely dodged his wrist from the path this time, guiding some energy into his hand and smacking the creature on the nose. A flare of light and the animal darted away, a significant portion of it`s face reddened and burnt. "Not getting away that easily," Goten threatened while throwing his right hand out and drifting back. "Kienzan!"   
  
A disc-like plane of ki swirled into existence just inches from his open, flat palm, and he threw it at the creature with lethal accuracy. Feet before impact the Kienzan shattered into five smaller attacks, all of which struck home.   
  
The chunks of the animal fell upward, at least to Goten it seemed upward. He had noted that gravity was equal at any point of the tunnel`s actual surface, being closer to the 'roof' just meant it fell to what he percieved as up. Goten wheeled around rapidly and caught the attempted stab by the remaining creature, having to work around that knife-like extension, which seemed to vibrate at a rate that made it seem larger than it actually was.   
  
"... I don`t even wanna know the ways you can use _that_ on a chick," he quipped to himself, bringing both feet up and shouting out. "Kame Hame Ha!"   
  
The rarely used Kame Hame Ha-through-the-feet technique was applied rather bluntly into the chest of the creature, forcibly blasting through and causing it`s head, arms and whatever was left of the wings to fly away and leaving Goten holding a spastic lower body, which he promptly threw at one of the creatures on the ground, dodging another of those lashing beams in the process. In his life, Goten had come to be rather accustomed to the life-or-death art of combat with foes far stronger, larger, faster, and/or fouler breathed than he was. By now, while he was just as loving of a good spar as the next Saiyan, he was getting tired of it. Not physically, but mentally.   
  
Watching the world crumble around you had that effect, you know.   
  
Another stream of bolts and two beams flashed by him as one of the commander-type creatures threw itself from the ground at Goten with the grace of a blinded elephant falling off a cliff. For what it was worth, he was actually impressed that this one almost seemed to grasp the concept of martial arts just from watching him, as it sent out several classic strikes that were seemingly learned almost on the spot.   
  
Impressed didn`t equal fear though. Goten blocked one of the near attacks with his right arm, bursting forward a short way and burying his elbow into the creature`s gut, then blurring out of the way as it sought to impale him on it`s knife, only to catch itself in the stomach. The creature fell to the side of the cylindrical tunnel, cutting itself in half from the waist to the spot between it`s two crown like crests in the process by trying to remove it`s tail. Goten phased back into view on the ground with his hand extended forward, energy cracking around it. "Big Bang Attack!"   
  
Another of the creatures, Goten couldn`t tell if it was a commander or a worker he hit, rippled and exploded into a silver cloud of fire which promptly consumed three or four of those beside it. "Next?!" Goten asked, lowering his hand to his side and flaring up his aura brightly, jade-like eyes swiftly peering about. That was when he noticed he had become surrounded.   
  
"... Oh, screw you guys," he grumbled to himself.   
  
_ I am nothing more than a little boy inside  
That cries out for attention though  
I always try to hide  
  
_ Goten felt around him. Dozens of powers quickly beginning to rise up as if readying an attack, all of them beginning to spark with energy and all of them beginning to glow that pink and red shade of the energy attacks he had spent the past - However long it had been - while dodging like it had been the end of the world. Goten flared his aura up, pooled his energy and closed his eyes, a barrier of ki, almost solid to the physical touch, forming around him, swirling and orbiting as a sphere seemed to fade into view within the golden aura he kept burning brightly from head to toe.   
  
There was a loud crack, like thunder, and the world turned that same shade of pinkish red for a good thirty seconds, the sound becoming too loud for human ears to register safely. By the time the light faded enough for one to actually see again, an enormous cloud of purple-black smoke rising from within the circle of demonic looking gaurdians, almost all of the worker-like creatures having fallen to all fours with their tales held in a near total arc, vibrating stinger-knife tips letting out buzzing whistles in the process as the commander-types stood their ground almost like actual men.   
  
"**_BAKUHATSUHA!!!_**"   
  
The smoke pillar suddenly vanished, as did every single one of the remaining warrior creatures in a blinding blue flash of light, dome shaped, utterly intense, sending visible shockwaves, for all intents and purposes, across Time. When it was all over, Son Goten stood straight in the center, falling out Super Saiyan and into his normal state with a neutrally tired expression on his face. "I hate having to do that," he uttered to himself. The Bakuhatsuha, a standard move utilized by the Saiyans and others, was an area blast to end all area blasts. Generally, it looked like a nuke and was visible from space. Only the warrior triggering it and those stronger than he were considered truly immune to the effects of the attack, but that didn`t mean Goten liked it.   
  
Mainly since he had learned the attack watching Vegeta do it repeatedly to city after city. Even if he had been reduced to an easy killer and a hardened fighting expert, that didn`t mean Goten was without his morals, however easily bended they could be when lives were at stake.   
  
_ 'Cause I talk to you like children  
Though I don't know how I feel  
  
_ "Moving along," he heard. Nobody was there though, and he didn`t give it any thought. He was almost used to that by now, enough that he didn`t jerk around anymore at being surprised. he thought to himself, rocketing towards that singular point in the horizon that called to him once again with even further intensity. He vaguely thought he heard the sound of footsteps, vaguely felt something at the edge of his senses, but he didn`t pay any attention to it.   
  
_ But I know I'll do the right thing  
If the right thing is revealed  
  
_ Usagi had by now been reunited with Mamoru, who had shown up a few minutes after the entire group had transformed back into normal, nobody really concerned with secrecy in the least about their identities now. Gohan and Bra had surprised him of course, and both of them had a bit of a time finding ways to conceal the Power Pole and Bra`s sword, neither of which were enchanted in a way to allow them to be shrunken, vanished, or anything else like that. Bra had managed to blast herself clean of the disgusting slop from earlier by powering up, and Gohan himself seemed to have been clean as it was, minus a bit of it that had gotten onto his arms, but that was alright.   
  
And so now the group - Mamoru, Usagi, Chibi Usa, Bra, Hotaru, Gohan, and Ami, who seemed to be flooding Bra and Gohan with questions - had begun the trek back towards the apartment jointly owned by Mamoru and Usagi, Mina and Makoto both having gone off to do whatever they had planned for the night, which was likely Makoto cooking and Minako 'testing' the food for the upcoming New Year`s Eve party.   
  
The two 'visitors' of sorts had a bit of a time really fitting in but they managed pretty well, though Gohan, despite seeming as friendly as he was, was pretty quiet. He seemed to glance over briefly towards Hotaru, who glanced back each time, every few minutes during the walk, not really saying anything at all while Bra seemed to become a chattermouth that equaled Usagi and Minako. Chibi Usa and Mamoru were pretty quiet for the time being, just letting the others do the talking for them for the time being.   
  
"Earth to Gohan," Bra chided, falling a step back and swatting him on the back of the head as the group began to turn the last corner before they could arrive at Usagi and Mamoru`s appartment building. "What?" Gohan grumbled back, finally tuning back into things as they were and putting his newly developed interest in Hotaru on the back burner.   
  
"Tell us a bit about yourself," Usagi said. "Bra told us all about her past in some apocalyptic future so..."   
  
_ "You just can`t keep a secret, huh?"_ Gohan seemed to display at a glance to Bra, who smirked back at him before moving back up to the head of the group next to Usagi. "Let`s see... Uhm... Long story actually," he trailed off while glancing to the side. "We have all the Time in the world," Mamoru reminded him. "Okay... Where do you want me to start? Recent or from birth?"   
  
"Whenever," Usagi shrugged. "From birth then... Okay, here goes. I was born to a Son Goku and Son Chichi King on 757 AD, I think 500 or so years from now. My life was mostly normal - minus having a tail like a monkey up until I was four and a half. My mom insisted that I learn to become a scholar and made me study, a _lot_, then one day my dad took me to a reunion with his old martial art`s sensei, Kamesennin, Bra`s mother, and my godfather, Krillin. The reunion was interrupted by my uncle Raditz dropping in and I was kidnapped. By the end of the day, my dad and uncle had both died and their killer, Piccolo Junior, had dropped me off in the wilderness for about six months to learn how to survive on my own," he recounted as casually as if giving the weather. It actually disturbed everyone there how seemingly uneffected he was by his own early traumas.   
  
"After that he spent six months training me on how to fight, and teaching me how to fly and stuff like that. Then a pair of aliens, formerly the bosses of my uncle, who was also an alien like my dad, arrived, namely Nappa and Bra`s father, Vegeta. Piccolo, Yamcha, Krillin, Chaozu, Tienshinhan and I fought them and it ended up with Yamcha being kamikazed by something called a Saiba Man, Chaozu self detonating to try and kill Nappa - which failed - and Tienshinhan losing part of his left arm and going insane. He blasted Nappa with a suicide attack and died without doing any real damage, then Krillin got knocked out and then Piccolo died saving me," he recounted. Everyone but Bra was impressed and mortified over his accounts of the fighting but nobody said anything to interrupt him. If anything, Mamoru was the only one to give a visible reaction to the surprise of Piccolo sacrificing himself as Gohan said he did.   
  
"After that, I blasted Nappa and beat him up for a little but he was too strong and beat me to a pulp afterward, then my dad, brought back from the dead by something called Dragonballs - which haven`t been made just yet - showed up and saved Krillin and me. He took Nappa down and broke his back, Vegeta killed Nappa and they went off to fight alone inland. About two hours later, Krillin and I jumped back into the fight and went head to head with Vegeta, I ended up unable to remember a lot of it for a long time but in the end Vegeta staggered away, his tail lopped off by a ronin named Yajirobe and the rest of us literally clinging to life."   
  
"So then we all went to a planet called Namek," he paused, looking over at the star struck Ami. "What?" He asked curiously. "You went to another planet at age five?" She asked. "Two of `em actually," he replied before continuing. "Ten days on Namek and so much happened that I`m not gonna bother remembering it all. By the end of it though, the Nameks had gone extinct twice, been revived, I had survived a broken neck among other things, Piccolo was back, as was everybody else after a year or two and then came the androids and Cell and a year in a room where Time moved by way faster. Twelve hours outside is six months in that room," he continued to explain.   
  
"After spending the equivelent of ten months in the room, my dad and I fought it out with a creature called Perfect Cell. Eventually my dad stepped down and I went against him..." Gohan paused, a fairly chargrinned expression crossing his face. "I`d rather not talk about the fighting after that," he mumbled. Usagi nodded. "Go on."   
  
"After that, a few months later we all fought someone named Bojack, and his lackeys. Aside from a woman named Zangya, all of them were killed. By me. And then after that came another tournament where I fought and went to a draw with a fellow named Dabura, after that I decided to take a three month trip around the world just seeing what I could and ended up stumbling on Bra and you know the rest," he finished, completely unphased by recounting anything but Cell. It had left a slightly offset view of him in the eyes of Mamoru and Chibi Usa both, and quite possibly in Bra and Ami as well, but Hotaru seemed to have not even heard him as the group stopped in front of a seven story apartment building. "I`d best get back to Mina and Mako, good night!" Ami yelled, halfway gone by the time she had finished.   
  
She was out of sight a few seconds later, and Usagi and Mamoru led everyone into the building after that. A few minutes later, the apartment, obviously a tad small for six people to share, opened up and everyone stepped inside. Hotaru was already set to stay the night, having brought a sleeping bag and set herself up in Chibi Usa`s room, and Bra had seemingly worked out sleeping arrangements with the pink haired girl she had come to be quick friends with in a matter of an hour or two.   
  
"Well since she`s sleeping with those two, what about you?" Mamoru asked while Usagi moved into the kitchen, the three girls darting off, albeit a bit slow on the somewhat tired Hotaru`s part, into Chibi Usa`s room. Gohan shrugged nonchalantly while removing the staff from his back and hanging it on the mostly unoccupied coat rack. "I can handle just sleeping on the floor or the couch," he replied while getting off the overshirt and setting it on the floor. "Alright. Need a blanket or anything?" Mamoru asked. "Nope," Gohan answered while undoing his boots. "You could set the shirt on a table or something," Usagi offered while walking back into view with an oversized cup of chocolate milk in hand.   
  
"The clothes I`m wearing, aside from the undershirt, pants and my socks and underwear, all weigh at least 25 pounds each, even the wrist bands," Gohan replied simply. "It`d break the table," he added a few seconds later. Mamoru and Usagi stared at one another briefly and shook their heads in much the same way at the same time. "Good night then, you`re welcome to helping yourself to the food in the fridge if you`d like," Usagi stated. "Night," Mamoru added as the young, newly married couple walked down the short hallway and vanished into their bedroom. "G`night," Gohan had replied a few seconds late while stumbling around trying to get one of his boots off.   
  
_ 'Cause its always raining in my head  
Forget all the things I should have said   
  
_ Gohan shrugged to himself, gazing down the hallway briefly and swearing he spotted Hotaru peeking out of Chibi Usa`s bedroom at him as he set his belt down in a carefully ordered pile with his overshirt, boots and wrist bands. Thank Kami for elastic waist bands in his gi pants, that much was for sure. Gohan gave a wave as Hotaru vanished from view again. He could feel the energy signatures of Mamoru and Usagi falling to rest, he could also feel Bra and Chibi Usa`s energies sparking about wildly as if chatting about something, but Hotaru`s energies felt too familiar for him to really think about what she was probably doing.   
  
_ "Ah well... There`s always tomorrow, I guess,"_ he thought to himself while flopping onto the couch. He was asleep a few minutes later.   
  


_End Part Three  
  
_

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**Author`s Note:** Chapter three kiddies... Hope ya liked it :D  
  
Oh yeah... Just saw Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Storyline sucked but the imagery... *Drools*  
  



	4. Falling Away From Me

  
  
**Author`s Note:** Finally, some nice dark action... Wasn`t as easy writing this part as I thought it`d be, but hey... Got to listen to Falling Away From Me over and over again for several hours three or four times over the course of a week while writing it... *Twitch. Assumes psychotic voice and expression.* Want some candy? *Hides a meat hook behind his back.*  
  
** Disclaimer:** I **DO** own DBZ and Sailor Moon.  
  
*Carted away by orderlies in white shirts.* BUT I DON`T WANT MY HAPPY-MEDICINE!!!  
  


* * *

  


** Hybrid Theory: Evolution  
**_ Falling Away From Me  
  
_

  
  
The creatures of the Passage through Time existed for reasons. They had never evolved there, per say, rather, they had been concocted to exist there. They, like pretty much anything else in the infinity of this place, existed only because they were there. The purpose they served came a little after they were created. The monsters, known to Setsuna as the Hizoru, were a deeply entrenched society of tribal creatures, complete with their own customs and languages, and their own rituals. They existed for the reason of gaurding and maintaining Time, since Setsuna could only do so much. They had been created from things Setsuna saw in her billion year reign before she had thoroughly altered the entire fabric of those said billion years to fit better with her mission.   
  
Few would ever believe the Moon Kingdom had once been ruled by Setsuna herself. Fewer still would ever believe that it had taken her four tries to get the billion year period of her reign as Gaurdian to fall into the pattern she wanted it to fit in perfectly. Sure there were a few minor problems, like the Dai Kaioshin and a good many of his underlings being killed, or the things like that, but the Dai Kaioshin would reappear at the end of her reign and tell her how well she did or whatever. It was a long story but the overlord of a universe wasn`t exactly someone you could really _keep_ dead.   
  
And this was one of the primary reasons the Hizoru existed. They kept Time on track, even if they weren`t all that bright(a few of them broke that trend, and at least one could probably outmatch Albert Einstein if it had the vocal cords to speak English or German to debate him). They filled and fixed gaps, the occasional paradox, things of that nature, and they held a strict code to annihilate anything that lacked the technology or the magic to safely travel Time. In a sense, they were like archangels or minor gods in their own right.   
  
They didn`t look the part mind you, but that`s beside the point trying to be made.   
  
As of late however, they were starting to feel more than a little annoyed and inadequate for their role in existence. I mean, really, two kids and a guy barely into his twenties had killed how many of them in a matter of... Okay, let`s ignore the attempt at keeping time within a passage right through it. But the point remained, three people had busted through their lines and it had broken down morale a bit. Setsuna had then told them of the mission and then things had been okay.   
  
And then came right now.   
  
_ Hey, I'm feeling tired  
My time, is gone today  
You flew with suicide  
Sometimes, that's ok  
  
_ There is a story, of a Time Before Time, in at least one very old religion, I believe an Indian religion most likely, and in that story there are all manner of demons. The truth on Time Before Time however, was a Gaurdian who became corrupt. His billion year reign was filled with mindless violence, death and other suitably _**bad**_ things. Scientifically speaking, worlds were blown apart with terraton-level bombs that defy science today, stars blasted Super Nova by plasma cannons the size of a plain 9mm handgun in use today. And on the mythical region, demons and dragons raged through a universe with few laws to it`s own physics, battling, killing, maiming and doing other fairly nasty things to each other.   
  
The name of the Gaurdian of the Time Before Time, the fifteenth reign before Setsuna, has been lost. When the Dai Kaioshin was reborn again in that Time, at it`s end, he struck the old Gaurdian down and gave birth to this Time. There are, however, things that defy even the highest reigning gods and Gaurdians, and the old Gaurdian`s chief underling was one of them. Knowing of it`s master`s fate, the creature hid within the dying heart of a Black Hole and waited, jumping from one Time to the Next and then powering right into the Passage during the now-erased period where Setsuna hadn`t taken the reigns of power.   
  
This creature was known as the Grand Enforcer. It was the worst of the worst, a rapid learner, an endless rampage and a numbingly strong foe, it was a creature that hated Setsuna and the Dai Kaioshin alike. One had died though, Majin Buu saw to that. Setsuna remained, and her work had remained too.   
  
It towered at three times the height of the largest Oozaru, and it`s blood lust could only echo it`s size and ferocity. Eyes that held nothing but black surveyed the Tunnel. While ten million years had passed since it`s entrance into Time, for the Grand Enforcer, it seemed like it had just rampaged in. The first Hizoru to spot it had been the Elgar Tribe, one of the weaker groups. Holding only one Hiz-ra(the commander type) and twelve Hiz-ru(the workers), the Elgar had been annihilated.   
  
And now, it would meet another tribe. The Ragna were a medium strength group of Hizoru, packing a council of thirteen Hiz-ra and a lower level caste of almost a hundred Hiz-ru, the Ragna weren`t the largest, but they were a fierce group to behold.   
  
Grand Enforcer felt amusement. One of the Hiz-ra roared a rallying cry and the entire lower caste, soon accompanied by the entirety of the Hiz-ra group, charged forward. The first to strike came at the Grand Enforcer`s chest, it lashed out, stabbing that deadly tail right into would would have been Grand Enforcer`s heart if it were a human, only barely succeeding in chipping the armor of the demonic beast. One swift blow and the Hiz-ru splattered against the Grand Enforcer`s fist like an insect against a windshield.   
  
Pinkish beams of energy, powerful enough to blow apart entire worlds in an instant, blasted against the hardened armor of the Grand Enforcer, who let out a wheezing sound equatable to a laugh before crouching to all fours and lunging downward. An entire column of Hiz-ru, and a single Hiz-ra, vanished into the monstrous jaws of the creature as it swept through, biting down and ending the lives of every last one of them instantly.   
  
Another assault of those pinkish-red energy bolts came from the side, catching it`s right side ungaurded and making the Grand Enforcer feel an inkling of pain.   
  
The entire assault force of thirty Hiz-ru and another Hiz-ra splattered by a blow from the thick-yet-nimble tail of Grand Enforcer, which smashed into them hard enough to ripple through all of Time itself. A quake struck Los Angeles in the human year of 2010 as a result. Most of California vanished beneath the seas.   
  
The Grand Enforcer wailed and snapped it`s teeth, producing a loud crackling sound that shattered the crests of the four Hiz-ra now charging it from afront, leaving them disoriented and in pain, unable to recover until a flare of it`s aura vaporized them.   
  
What must have been mere seconds if time could be calculated here, would pass. And after that, nothing. The Grand Enforcer roared in victory, and the entire Ragna Tribe of the Hizoru was gone. Not a single survivor.   
  
_ Hear what others say  
I'm here, standing hollow  
Falling away from me  
Falling away from me...  
  
_ Goten could have sworn he heard something shriek behind him. It sounded like nails on a chalk board, almost, or perhaps the way a tyrannosaurus often sounds in a movie, only a bit more high pitched. Whatever it was, he didn`t like it.   
  
He wasn`t the only one, either. "Hurry it up!"   
  
Goten didn`t think twice as to the source, he just did as told and rushed ahead, a vague, deathly feeling passing over him as he did so.   
  
_ Day, is here fading  
That's when, I would say  
  
_ Day two of his stay in Tokyo. He and Bra were lucky to have arrived when they did. School would be out until the seventh of January, he had an inexplicable feeling that he would leave before then. Either way it gave him the chance to register himself and Bra in a local school and bought him enough time to buy clothes and the like, even work out arrangements with Usagi and her group of friends, where he and Bra would alternate in where and who they stayed with during the time here.   
  
He had even managed to meet most of Usagi`s group, though he did feel a little annoyed at how Minako felt the urge to pick on him about how grown-up his build looked. Today of course, he was being dragged along by the entire circle of friends, which had more or less come to adopt Bra wholesale as one of their own, around the town. They consisted of Usagi, Minako, Chibi Usa, Makoto, Ami(who still pestered him infrequently with questions about space and time travel), Hotaru, Mamoru, and now himself. He played it smartly and lagged a few steps behind the others, though it was mostly his way of trying to get used to his new clothes.   
  
He had been forced to adopt a pair of baggy legged jeans, sneakers, and a long sleeved shirt as a change from the douji he favored. It was a bit of a culture shock given he had spent virtually all of his life, bar the infrequent and mostly random change here and there, wearing traditional clothing for a philosopher or fighter. And then came the arguements to get a haircut, which he flatly refused. For all intents and purposes, you could take away the douji but he wanted to keep his hair the way it was for now, it made him feel more himself even with the change of clothes.   
  
Bra had just swiped some of Chibi Usa`s clothes and been essentially a-okay from there.   
  
Hotaru was the only one that seemed to actually notice he wasn`t walking with the group as they continued to move through the streets. New Year`s Eve was in only a couple of hours.   
  
_ "This sucks,"_ Gohan thought dryly, staring down at this clothes like they were some sort of abomination. Hotaru let out a very faint giggle and looked back ahead, trying to ignore that annoyed expression Gohan carried.   
  
"Hey!" An unusually cheerful sounding Rei Hino called out, being accompanied by a clutzy looking fellow with shaggy black hair, both dressed in plain clothing for once. Gohan`s eyes locked onto the male, he looked familiar. Kind of like a younger...   
  
No, that was just too laughable. Besides, _he_ wouldn`t exist for another five hundred or so years. _"I must be getting more homesick than I thought,"_ he mused, gazing over at Miss Hino curiously as well. _"She looks kinda familiar too. Weird,"_ he thought with a shrug.   
  
Usagi began the introductions and things returned to the pace they`d been at earlier.   
  
_ I flew with suicide  
Sometimes kill the pain  
I can always say  
"It's gonna be better tomorrow"  
  
_ "Almost there... I think," Goten told himself, looking over his shoulder and spotting quite literally nothing. But then, he hadn`t bothered to look up or to the other side, just behind himself. He hadn`t bothered paying attention to his senses, either. Only the urge to keep moving forward. That was mistake number one, but mistake number two wasn`t as apparent. There`s another reason fighters often ignite battle auras, several in fact. For one, it makes an excellent lighting signal at night or in a dark place. For another, it`s a good shield against the air when flying very quickly, but the most practical usage is never quite apparent as most fighters tend to master it enough that the actual aura itself isn`t needed for the effect it can have.   
  
Auras work like diffusors for incoming energy attacks, generally anyway, the energy attack hits into the aura and weakens a bit before it can hit the target. While for most, like the Saiyans, this little fact has never quite been figured out, for other races, such as the Namek prior to that bit of carnage on Old Namek some 1500 years ago, knew this trick almost from the time they could walk.   
  
Goten had sort of figured this out, but since the air flow in the tunnel seemed to be uneffective at doing anything to him whatsoever while flying, even at his top speed, he didn`t really think to put his aura up. If he`d done so, he`d probably still be flying.   
  
"Shit!"   
  
But he left his aura down, so a fairly large bolt of energy had struck him in the back and thrown him into the 'ground.' "You can say that again," Goten muttered to himself, looking up and over his shoulder at whatever had struck him. His jaw, almost instantly, hang down an inch and a half as he gaped at his attacker. Three hundred feet tall, a body resembling Godzilla with a reddened crystalline crest on it`s forehead, wings, two primary arms and hands, and what looked like pincer claws on a pair of secondary arms extending from the mid-section, stocky, thick legs and a mouth lined with razor sharp teeth. The tail came into view a second later, long, thick and tipped with a glowing, perfectly round ball that looked capable of killing a man just by gently touching him. The monster`s body was covered in what seemed like armoring, and it held a triple line of tarnished silver-seeming crests running from between it`s wings to the base of it`s enormous tail.   
  
Grand Enforcer was it`s name, it looked just as menacing as that name implied and it growled like a beast that could only barely be comprehended.   
  
Goten`s thoughts, jumbled as they were, and a bit pained as well, reflexively thought up something to say, reflexively triggered the words to echo from his mouth as he stared up at the monstrosity. "Brush much?"   
  
The creature blinked. Goten had his chance and he took it, igniting his aura back up and rocketing into the air and out of the reach of it`s massive arms and pincers, but not out of the tail, which Goten had to work furiously at to dodge. The tail was quick, it may have been thick and it may have looked clumsy, but it was quick. Goten swung himself around it and pooled his energy up into one hand, throwing off a ki blast into the monster`s tail at point blank. It growled and unfolded it`s massive wings at a rapid pace, blowing itself and Goten apart as it took to the air and Goten inched back under the pressure.   
  
"Taiyoken!" Goten screamed, briefly blinding the Grand Enforcer. His chance was now, Goten turned towards that singular point and ran with every ounce of speed he could muster, jumping up and flying towards what seemed like the ground...   
  
_ Falling away from me  
Falling away from me...  
  
  
_ Only to find himself forcibly halted. The creature may have been blinded but it had other senses to utilize in it`s onslaught. Goten had been forced to a stop by what seemed like the monster gathering power, and then he had been dragged along into the air as it`s mouth glowed with a nuclear blue. A loud roar, Goten screamed, a kiai met a world killer attack and a blast of fire and smoke echoed from the spot, powerful enough to throw the airborn Grand Enforcer back until he settled into what looked like a hover. His flight was limited to that of a bird`s, so the rush of air hadn`t really damaged him but it had carried him back.   
  
And then the reason his attack had stopped became apparent once more as a similarly colored beam of energy echoed from within the now clearing black cloud, striking the Grand Enforcer`s left wing and ripping right through it before the entire beam seemed to coil into a sphere and turn around, shattering into dozens of smaller attacks and striking into the Grand Enforcer`s head from behind. The monster fell from the air and landed with an enormous crash into the ground as another series of ki blasts flew from the cloud, which was now beginning to clear, and struck into the Grand Enforcer`s crest.   
  
It let out another roar and got back to it`s feet, slowly but surely, and then roared it`s defiance once again, sending a wave of visible sound into the cloud. The smoke dissipated and Goten became visible, pressed against a barely visible shadow of a wall, which smashed him right into the 'ground at another point of the tunnel, the wall to the creature. "Ow," Goten muttered out.   
  
In Hiroshima, Tokyo, 1945 AD, the Atomic Bomb was dropped.   
  
Goten got to his feet and wiped his face off. It felt as though the air had somehow been burned onto his body, and ozone stank in his nostrils. "I asked you before, brush much?!" Goten demanded, hoping the creature fell to wonder at the question once again. Grand Enforcer just growled and bent it`s powerful legs before jumping the way up to meet Goten. In what looked like a man stepping on an ant, the monstrosity slammed it`s foot down into Goten, and for an instant, the Super Saiyan seemed to vanish.   
  
Then a faint golden glow became visible in the outline of Grand Enforcer`s foot. And then the equivelent of an ant toppling a man occured as Goten shoved the Grand Enforcer off of himself and sent it falling onto it`s side. He jumped up, avoiding the enormous tail which swept through the air at a blinding rate and struck into another part of the tunnel as a result while Goten himself rocketed downward, avoiding the instant death that would`ve occured if one of the pincer arms had gotten him, and dodging a clumsy attempt at a punch before landing a few feet from the creature`s armpit, jumping to the side and avoiding it`s elbow as it thrashed.   
  
Goten threw his hands up over his head and screamed out. "Masenko-ha!"   
  
The orange beam crashed right into the Grand Enforcer`s arm pit as it had raised it`s arm to try and swat Goten away. The creature`s massive arm ripped away and it gnashed it`s teeth in agony. Goten thought he`d had things won from there.   
  
And then the creature grabbed it`s severed arm and smacked him with it.   
  
_ Beating me down  
Beating me, beating me  
Down, down  
Into the ground  
  
_ Goten slammed chin-first into the 'ground' and skidded along with a violent pace to a halt, laying there briefly before rolling back over. He was hurting and now bore a busted chin and a few cuts and bruises along his face and arm, and everywhere else really. "Ew," he uttered, seeing the demon slap it`s arm back on as if nothing had happened. The hole in the wing remained.   
  
"You are disgusting," Goten commented dryly while sitting up and holding his jaw. Grand Enforcer seemed to almost make a jesture as if it was smiling, and then lunged at Goten, crossing the entire space between the two with a single, deathly roar and then lashing out at where he had been sitting, only to strike nothing as Goten phased back into existence a few hundred feet behind it. "Big Bang..."   
  
Goten turned towards the demon, hands held flat in front of himself, wrist to wrist, a glow of blue forming there. "Kame..." He began the attack, power gathering itself up from all over as his aura of gold intensified magnificently, lighting up the entire area with an intensity rivaling the sun itself. Sparks of electric blue lightning whirled violently around the demi-saiyan`s hands.   
  
"Hame..." Power built up and his aura tinged blue at the inner edges, a sphere of nuclear blue light swirling into existence in front of his palms, virtually all of his power collecting there for the time being. Goten`s eyes narrowed as the creature turning to face him, snarling at the insect that had dared to defy it.   
  
"**_HA!!!_**"   
  
The world turned blue-white for twenty seconds, and a roar of sound so loud it couldn`t register followed. Grand Enforcer vanished, Goten vanished, Time itself almost stood still for a while and then things became visible again. Grand enforcer stood, an eerie crimson glow enveloping it`s left arm below the elbow, and Goten`s blast had been swatted away. Goten watched in sobering shock as his attack flew off into the distance and vanishing over the horizon. He turned back to the Grand Enforcer and hung there as an explosive shockwave passed through Time and rattled the entire Passage. Even the Grand Enforcer staggered slightly under the force of the shockwave.   
  
A hundred and sixty-five million years ago, the dinosaurs died out.   
  
"How the hell?"   
  
Grand Enforcer stood tall as Goten blankly stared at the now-fading light in the distance. His best attack, bashed away as if it had been nothing. Vegeta could only barely pull that off, and this thing seemed to be a good bit stronger than Vegeta at the least.   
  
_ "I`m screwed,"_ Goten thought. _"I am absolutely fucking screwed."   
  
Screaming so sound  
Beating me, beating me  
Down, down  
Into the ground  
  
_ Goten watched in horror as the Grand Enforcer began to rise, somewhat lopsidedly due to it`s torn wing, cackling demonically all the while. It came flying at him, but Goten just barely found himself able to dodge the main body, and all of it`s weapons, only to be smacked by the ball at the end of the tail, which threw him for several kilometers before he halted his momentum, not falling in any direction now since he had his that point at the center of the tunnel that there was equal gravity in every direction. Goten wheezed and spun to face the Grand Enforcer as it landed on what to him looked like the ceiling. Goten didn`t know it but this infinity bit - he couldn`t comprehend the size of the tunnel itself and yet he could still get from point A to point B on the walls, floor and ceiling with no trouble almost - was really beginning to grate on his nerves.   
  
_ Falling away from me  
It's spinning round and round  
Falling away from me  
It's lost and can't be found  
Falling away from me  
It's spinning round and round  
Falling away from me  
  
_ Night time now. Tokyo was a pretty rowdy place on this evening, but thankfully it wasn`t busy at the part of the city where Usagi and Mamoru lived. And thankfully as well that it still offered a pretty good view of the city in general. The fireworks outside were pretty spectacular to see and hear, not that Gohan hadn`t seen bigger and brighter explosions in his life, but it was so nice that these weren`t explosions meant to kill him or anybody else for once.   
  
The real party was going on inside the apartment, where Mamoru, Usagi and pretty much everyone else was gathered, celebrating the new year. Gohan could swear he spotted something familiar in Yuuichirou and Rei, but he still couldn`t put his finger on it, and with Hotaru it was more or less something else he found familiar. Gohan honestly didn`t know whether or not it was her appearance or her energy which he found familiar, nor did he know whether or not he should be disturbed by that fact.   
  
Either way, he hadn`t noticed that he was no longer alone on the fire escape.   
  
"Homesick?" Hotaru asked, sitting down next to Gohan. Despite the usual shyness of both involved, neither really seemed all that uppity about being near one another at the moment. "Kinda," Gohan replied while rubbing the top of his head. He had jerked up in surprise and knocked his head into the safety rail, bending it slightly.   
  
Quiet settled over them. Neither knew what to say or do. Gohan broke the quiet after a few seconds. "Why aren`t you with the others?" He asked. "Others?" Hotaru replied. "Yeah... Bra and Chibi Usa mainly," he answered. "Oh. They seem to`ve bonded as friends so much that I can`t really get much of a word in with them," Hotaru replied with a shrug. She was noticably a bit saddened by that fact but looked as if she was used to being left out. "They do seem to have become buddies lately," Gohan remarked with a shrug of his own. "Yeah."   
  
Another pause in words.   
  
"What`s it like where you come from?" Hotaru finally asked. Gohan blinked briefly. "Different from here, to say the least," he replied with a faint smirk. "There`s almost always some incoming battle or something though," he added. Hotaru gave a nod. "Kind of like that here. Thankfully though it`s all calmed down these past few years."   
  
"Lucky for you guys then, my time`s had to deal with three major threats in as many months. Androids, bio-weapons and super ancient galactic tyrants," he commented dryly. Hotaru chuckled a bit, wrapping herself around a support rail and staring up at the fireworks. "What are the people like where you come from?" She asked dreamily. "... Mostly insane, but generally good at heart," Gohan replied. Hotaru raised a brow. "Most of the people are pretty nice, then you have the fighters and all that. Everyone seems to have something they`re crazy about though."   
  
Hotaru nodded. "Most of the people here aren`t that nice. Chibi Usa and her friends are pretty good though," she said with a smile. "What`s your family like?" Gohan asked. Hotaru leered off to the side. "I don`t really remember my mother," she explained. "And my father is still pretty embedded in his work. He`s brilliant guy, just..." She trailed off. "I look up to Haruka and Michiru," she paused, looking to see if they were present. They were. She pointed at them and Gohan was actually pretty surprised to recieve another culture shock that both were girls, even if Haruka seemed more like a fairly petite man than a woman. "They`re the ones I think of like my parents."   
  
"... Wow..." Gohan mumbled, still pretty surprised. "Something wrong?" Hotaru asked. Gohan shook his head after a few seconds and looked back to her. "No, just surprised. Where I come from, relationships like that aren`t really common," he stated. "They aren`t here either," she replied. "What`s your family like?"   
  
Gohan smirked a bit. "My mom`s a bit nuts, my uncle`s a dead, redeemed mass murderer, my adopted uncle is a green alien named for a musical instrument who used to serve as the planet`s Kami, my dad`s a dead hero who`s died twice and decided to stay that way the second time and I have a little brother on the way named Goten," he summarized briefly. Hotaru gained a very, very, unprecedentedly rare sarcasm after a moment or two. "And you thought my family was weird?"   
  
"Welcome to my world," Gohan replied with a snicker.   
  
_ Slow it down...  
  
_ Goten dodged another lunge. The Grand Enforcer might have been tough but it was a sloppy fighter, relying more on power than speed and skill. That was Goten`s observation anyway. He rapidly dodged over the creature`s head and flew down behind it only to get smacked by one of the wings and thrown through the hole he had blasted in the other.   
  
Goten landed with a skid and got back to his feet, pooling more of his energy into one hand and giving honest thought to whether or not he even had a limit to the power he controlled. It seemed that no matter how often he was beaten in, how much he exhausted himself, he could almost always pull out more power. But he couldn`t seem to break a certain limit on just how much he could pull up for any single act. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn`t seem to get by that limit.   
  
Goten watched as his foe roared in victory, even thought the fight had yet to end. "Ugly bastard," he grumbled out, getting his arms set to his sides, held back, and gathering power. He gathered as much of his ki as he could possibly manage, and then he screamed as loud as he could.   
  
"**_KAKUSANDAN!!!_**"   
  
Both arms flashed forward and and a blue-white beam shot up from all around him, flying forward and catching Grand Enforcer right in the small of the back, and shattering one of the creature`s crests. It let out a ferral cry of pain as the assault on it continued, slowly forcing through it`s layers of hard armoring by sheer merit of the power being expended in the attack, no form of drilling involved. Grand Enforcer staggered as the attack detonated on it`s back, scorching it and then finally throwing it to it`s knees in pain. Goten stumbled back and fell to his rear end exhaustedly, sweat pooling up on his brow, numerous battle wounds marring his body.   
  
"Swiss miss son of a bitch," Goten muttered out between gasps. "Fifty times bigger than me... Fifty **_FUCKING_** times bigger than me... And I _still_ beat you!" He taunted, clawing back up and staggering in mid-sentence. A massive thud and the Grand Enforcer landed on it`s belly, unmoving.   
  
_ Beating me down  
Beating me, beating me  
Down, down  
Into the ground  
  
_ Goten turned around and began to stumble away, laughing maniacally all the while. And then came the gust of wind that knocked him off of his feet. Seething with anger, Goten looked over his shoulder and glared as Grand Enforcer beat it`s wings furiously, gradually working it`s way up to it`s feet as best it possibly could.   
  
_ Screaming so sound  
Beating me, beating me  
Down, down  
Into the ground  
_  
"You just don`t know when to quit, do you?" Goten asked, getting back up once again and turning to face the creature that had, so far, beaten him senseless repeatedly.   
  
_ Pressing me, they won't go away  
So I pray, go away  
  
_ Hotaru and Gohan sat in a relaxed manner on the fire escape. Neither had said much of a word since Gohan had explained his family, just the occasional mumble of surprise and awe at the fireworks and the like. Quiet was the only way you could really describe it with one word. It had it`s underlying tension, surprisingly high given the age of the two who sat there, and it had it`s underlying sense of peace that overwhelmed the tension, but overall, it was just quiet.   
  
Pretty relaxing, really. Nobody had bothered to intrude, nobody even noticed the two weren`t present, it seemed, save for Setsuna. How she had even arrived was anyone`s guess, she`d literally popped up from no where it seemed. And she`d come with another as well, namely in the form of one Ryo Urawa. He had ended up in Tokyo due to what he had told his father was an accident. The truth?   
  
He had intentionally gotten the wrong ticket for his plane ride and ended up in Tokyo. That bit of an ability he had for seeing the future told him the rest.   
  
Setsuna though, hovered at the edge of the group. She had never quite been the social type, even during the time before she had been selected from everyone that would ever live in her billion year reign as Gaurdian. The only person she had ever even fallen in love with was a good looking young man in glasses, a highly intelligent fellow who had become immersed in his work. When she had faked her first death, he had all but been broken, right down to the extent that he became anti-social towards his own daughter.   
  
Souichi Tomoe had been the love of Setsuna`s life. All of them. She hadn`t bothered looking at another being romantically since then and she never would. This was the real reason why she so frequently kept an eye on Hotaru, feigning a lie to the others that the girl would probably one day destroy the planet. What good mother doesn`t at least try to keep an eye, however vague and rarely she let it be known, on her daughter?   
  
The quiet on the fire escape however, didn`t last much longer. Gohan jerked as Bra and Chibi Usa yanked the window open and chattered rapidly between one another before grabbing Hotaru and practically dragging her inside. "It was good talking to you," Hotaru managed to get out as Gohan waved to her. There was an audible slam and the window was shut as Hotaru was dragged off to join the party. Gohan shook his head and looked back out at the fireworks.   
  
_  
_ "**_FUCK!!!_**" Goten screamed, slamming into the ground for the umpteenth time in the battle, this time hard enough to actually crack the ground beneath him. His body ached as Grand Enforcer, which seemed to be wearing down a bit, charged him, placing both hands forward and letting out a roar before a single, crimson beam of energy blazed from his palms, flashing through the air and barely missing Goten, who had rocketed up at the last possible second. Goten`s right arm had gone numb by now, it was literally swollen red and purple, stained with blood. His douji had a few tears in it, mostly leading to cuts and bruises, and his face had been covered in bruising and bleeding.   
  
It lashed out with it`s tail, Goten phased out of the way and blurred back into view behind it, throwing a high powered ki blast right into what would be the tendon of the heel if Grand Enforcer was human. He definately hit something, the creature lurched backward and then fell over all together as Goten blurred back out of the way again and reappeared above, holding his arm.   
  
Grand Enforcer stopped it`s own fall, balancing on it`s tail and then righting itself with a growl.   
  
_ Beating me down  
Beating me, beating me  
Down, down  
Into the ground  
  
_ There are times in the lives of every fighter where they question the validity of fighting further. The times when courage takes a backseat to survival instinct and how fast you can run become more important than how hard you can punch someone`s teeth out. The times when all thoughts of posterity are smacked aside and the urge to get the hell out of dodge comes with a vengeance.   
  
For Son Goten, that time was now. "Some other time," he uttered, holding that limp, possibly crippled arm of his and turning around before darting off. Grand Enforcer limped after him but watched as it`s enemy faded from view. It snorted. The first fight it had ever been beaten to a draw in.   
  
Angry didn`t quite do the creature`s emotions justice.   
  
_ Screaming so sound  
Beating me, beating me  
Down, down  
Into the ground...  
  
_ Goten touched down at that singular point, perfectly so, that had been nagging at him to come and enter, the singular point that he had been running for since the start of his third go into the Passage of Time, the singular point that led from the Infinity of a Billion, and right into the heart of Tokyo City, January First, the year 2002.   
  
The 21st century was about to have to deal with two Sons who embodied Goku to the core and a Briefs who bore Vegeta`s power, Bulma`s personality and carried a big sword.   
  
God help them all.   
  


_ End Part Four  
_  


* * *

  
**Author`s Note:** *Rocking back and forth in his padded room in the institution.* Whiteshirts nice... Hehehehehe...  
  
**Gohan:** Since he`s a bit...*Dodges feces.* out of it for the duration, I guess I`ll be handling things until next chapter, huh? Before I start though, a small apology on behalf of Sh33p to those *Dodges a few skulls.* who had trouble following the action during the time jump sequences. Needless, to say it`ll be the beginning of the end next chapter, and what an end it`ll be... *Dodges another handfull of feces.* **_WILL YOU CUT THAT OUT?!_**  
  



	5. Schism

  
**Author`s Note:** In case you`re wondering, the fic is already completed. I just post chapter by chapter to give any reader who likes it the chance to feel some suspense.  
  
Oh yeah, thanks to Gohan for holding the fort while I was gone. I got out though, just had to be a little inventive about it. *Holds up an extremely bloody spoon.* Moving along, go see Star Wars: Episode 2. Sure, Lucas had to be smoking SOMETHING to get a name like "Attack of the Clones," and sure the love scenes between Anakin and Padmé are cheesy, but everything else... Yoda especially. I now know why you do **_NOT_** piss off the green midget! GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY O.O!!!  
  
**Disclaimer:** Sh33p no own. BYE.  
  


* * *

  
**

Hybrid Theory: Evolution   


**_Schism  
  
  
  
_Early morning and things had quieted down considerably as Gohan woke up. He found himself draped in a blanket but he`d definately known from the start that he had slept on the fire escape. Quietly and tiredly, he leaned up from where he had been sitting in his sleep, bundling it up under one arm and then he turned around, only to be greeted by that mysteriously neutral face of the woman he could now attest to having had no less than two run-ins in two different times in.   
  
"Mornin`," he yawned while scratching his side. Setsuna shrugged. "Good morning," she responded a few seconds later. Gohan raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong?"   
  
"Do you find something familiar in Hotaru? Or in Rei and her boyfriend?" Setsuna asked. Gohan blinked. "Yes, actually. How did you know?" He asked curiously. "How do you find them familiar?" Setsuna asked. "They just are," Gohan answered. "Hotaru seems less familiar than Rei and that Yuuichirou guy, but if I didn`t know any better I`d say he could probably pull off imitating Yamcha from the pictures I`ve seen of him when he was younger," he added. Setsuna snickered for no apparent reason at the comparison. "His energy is different though. Familiar in a weird kind of way. And Hotaru`s is just kind of... Half familiar, half different."   
  
"How is Rei familiar?"   
  
"Not her energy, but her appearance. Could swear I`ve seen someone like her _somewhere_ before," Gohan mumbled. "Good. You`re smart," Setsuna praised. "I`ll explain it all very soon, but for now, do you know of a certain thing about the girls inside?" She asked. "Nope," he answered. "They`re all automatically reincarnated when they die. Where and when needed. That`s why you find Hotaru familiar, but not Rei. You _should_ have found Minako at least slightly familiar though," Setsuna frowned. "I don`t know who they reincarnated as then."   
  
"I`ll tell you soon," Setsuna stated before heading back inside. Gohan followed her only to have to step over no less than three sleeping bags, two occupied by multiple people. Ryo and Ami had shared one, as had Yuuichirou and Rei, Makoto slept alone and Minako had swiped the couch. "Gee, almost jealous," Gohan quipped while following Setsuna into the kitchen. As far as he was concerned, he was just going to get something to drink, Setsuna on the other hand was just making sure to be in the right place at the right time.   
  
Setsuna waited as Gohan entered the kitchen, carefully opening the fridge door to avoid ripping it off. She then interrupted him. "You should get your fighting clothes on," she advised. "You`ll need them. Soon."   
  
Gohan glanced over at her only to be met with a cryptic, assuring gaze. "Will the others be in danger?" He asked. Setsuna shook her head no. "Not immediately." She seemed a bit saddened by that revelation but didn`t go into it. Even if Gohan had seen it, he probably wouldn`t have asked. "Then I`ll keep them from being in danger at all," he promised to himself, bounding over the sleeping denizens of the room and somehow managing to stealthily toss on all of his fighting clothes, unaware that the two kanjis on the shoulder of his douji had been removed somehow during the night.   
  
"That will be harder than you think," Setsuna stated as she watched the awkward haired boy hop over to the fire escape without so much as a sound, sliding out the still-open window and then carefully shutting it. Setsuna watched as the boy blurred from sight and then used another sense to track him leaving. She herself had things to tend to, but first she would spend a bit doing something she had so long wished for.   
  
Setsuna stepped silently into the doorframe of Chibi Usa`s room and watched Hotaru sleep.   
  
_ I know the pieces fit cuz   
I watched them fall away  
Mildewed and smoldering  
Fundamental differing  
  
_ Gohan was more than a little surprised at how few people were out in the early hours of the morning. It almost seemed as though the entire city was dealing with a hang-over induced urge to sleep late. With agility beyond his years, and speed to go with it, Son Gohan jumped from roof to roof, not flying since he had no real reason to. Not yet anyway. A jump here, he had flown a block acrss the city. A jump there, he had gone right over a sky scraper of a building and touched down on the top of a small video store with a thump.   
  
Tokyo Tower was visible now, and he could sense a faint charge coming from just at the center of it`s base level. Flying was how he covered the rest of the way, a whitish aura snapping around him with a sound akin to a synthesizer beat, rocketing through the air at fast enough a speed to arrive at the tower after only a few seconds, but slow enough to avoid causing any sonic booms or anything of that nature. A graceful turning arc and Gohan flew through the steel beams of the tower, which seemed inspired at least indirectly by the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and then touching down as the same portal he and Bra had emerged through mere days earlier(at most) crackling to life. Energy sparked around it as a water effect formed, a perfectly round opening in the air, two dimensional when viewed from the side and non-existant from behind.   
  
Intrigued as he was by it, he automatically raised his power up as well, feeling something that came close to matching what he guessed his father would be by now rushing towards this time.   
  
Gohan eased down into a fighting posture as the portal grew brighter and dark at a furious rate before literally spitting out a man that looked like a perfect twin for Goku if he had ever cut and styled his hair shorter. The fellow smacked into the bottom of the first tower and then fell back down, right onto the ground where the portal had been moments before.   
  
The first thing Gohan noticed about him was how damaged the man was, blood practically drenched a light orange gi outfit with a blue undershirt and matching wristbands and a belt. Another thing Gohan noticed was the man`s hair, which had been gold only seconds before, now faded to black and now set forward in an odd kind of way. He blanked out on words to say briefly as the fellow lumbered up to his feet, laughing and coughing, hacking up bits of blood and being otherwise disoriented in virtually every sense of the word.   
  
"Who are you?" Gohan asked. The fellow turned around and for the first time in either of their lives, the alternate future incarnation of Son Goten and the mainstream reality incarnation of Son Gohan stared at one another in the eyes. Neither spoke, neither even knew what to say. Gohan quickly snapped back into fighting stance though, powering up but remaining out of Super Saiyan, eyes narrowed.   
  
"Are you the one coming to threaten these people?" He demanded. Goten promptly fell over backwards and stayed that way, laughing in a most awkward sort of way. Gohan blinked and waited for an answer from the bloody version of his brother from the future.   
  
_ Pure intention juxtaposed will  
Set two lovers souls in motion  
Disintegrating as it goes  
Testing our communication  
  
_ Hotaru woke up slowly, finding herself being watched by the woman she considered something of an aunt figure. She and Setsuna had never really been close, at least Hotaru didn`t know. Powerful magics had kept her from recognizing the woman as her mother no matter how many times she compared the pictures of her mother to Setsuna, and memory didn`t much help. There would always be some noticable difference that only a select few could pick apart. Hotaru saw her mother as a more beautiful woman than Setsuna was, a woman that held a sort of aura that could only be described as pure elegance. Setsuna came close to that plateu, but she just wasn`t the same.   
  
For a long while the two stared without any words, and then Hotaru got up to her feet and stretched. Setsuna watched silently and enigmatically the entire time, an unfathomable smirk just barely being teased at the edge of her expression.   
  
And then Hotaru spoke.   
  
"Hello," she greeted Setsuna respectfully. The other shook her head. "Something wrong?" Hotaru asked. "No. I was just wondering over the future," Setsuna answered. "Well, you gaurd the Passage of Time. If you want to know it, you can always just check ahead a few decades and find out, right?" Hotaru asked. Setsuna shook her head. "It`s not that," she replied before turning away. "You may want to ready yourself to heal someone, you`ll soon be having a guest. And you may also want to wake everyone up a bit early," she explained before vanishing off into the living room. A few seconds later the sound of the door opening and shutting could be heard and Hotaru blinked.   
  
Lonely as she had almost always been in life. Hotaru shook her head and looked around. "I`ll let everyone sleep a bit longer," she thought aloud before wandering into the kitchen.   
  
_ The light that fueled our fire  
Then has burned a hole between us so  
We cannot see to reach an end  
Crippling our communication  
  
_ Setsuna paused once she had gotten around the corner from the apartment, and then promptly scratched her temple. This would be harder than she thought, and in more ways than one.   
  
_ I know the pieces fit cuz  
I watched them tumble down  
No fault, none to blame  
It doesn't mean I don't desire to  
Point the finger, blame the other  
  
_ Goten slowly scraped himself back up with a stumble. Gohan remained in a fighting stance the entire time, practically a set killer ready to let loose on his own brother if Goten was the one who Setsuna considered a threat. His thoughts were dispelled a few seconds later though as Goten staggered down to his hands and knees, only able to use one arm since the other had gone completely numb. "No," Goten finally replied, much to Gohan`s relief. The younger of the two raised himself from his former stance and then walked over, crouched down and started looking over the wounds Goten had acquired.   
  
"I`m not, but the real threat probably isn`t far behind," Goten gagged out, hacking up a bit of blood for emphasis. Gohan spoke up a few seconds later, tossing Goten`s arm over his shoulder. "Keep quiet. Need to get you to a hospital..."   
  
"No time," Goten grumbled out. "Thing could get here any second and when it does..." He ran his index finger across his own throat and trailed off. "Maybe one of the others can help then," Gohan thought aloud. Frantic as he was inside, he kept himself calm and distant. It made things easier. A special talent he had developed during his lifetime, enough blood and guts, suffering and pain and you build up a tolerance to it. His was more selective though, and it wasn`t as hardened as that of some.   
  
Goten let out a wheeze and passed out as Gohan put him back down and then scooped him up again, onto his shoulders. A crack of light and Gohan had darted up into the air, not even bothering to be stealthy on the way back as he headed straight for the apartment owned by Mamoru and Usagi, darting around early morning traffic, ducking light posts and avoiding ripping people`s heads off by mere inches in the process.   
  
An already slightly unstable youth with the power to annihilate a planet more or less by _accident_ alone undergoing the stress of watching someone who bore a striking resemblance to his father and also claimed, successfully, to be his younger brother from the future was most obviously _**not**_ something one would want to be in the path of.   
  
_ Watch the temple topple over  
To bring the pieces back together  
Rediscover communication  
  
_ Goten, as beaten as he was, wasn`t the only one who had endured a great deal of abuse in the fighting mind you. Indirectly it had caused a mass extinction, blown away a city in Japan and caused a mysterious explosion in Russia, totalling on the order of well over twelve hundred million life forms directly or indirectly killed, ranging from people to animals to a few alien visitors here and there. However, the entity known as the Grand Enforcer refused to just lay down and call it quits. Countless battles with creatures scarcely comprehendable had instilled in it a deeply rooted desire for victory and an even deeper rooted will to keep fighting until that victory was achieved regardless of the costs.   
  
This was why the Grand Enforcer was currently glaringly searching out for that same point that Son Goten had used to escape him. The interesting thing that few could realize about the Passage of Time was that it`s walls were more or less tuned into a few set times. No matter how much you thought you were in the wrong time, you were where it dictated regardless of what you wanted. It was why Trunks` Time Machine had propelled him into the wrong timeline in the first place, and why Bra and Goten had become seperated.   
  
Then again, the Grand Enforcer wasn`t even supposed to exist in the Passage of Time. It just was. And now it had a massive grudge and a bloody nose. His foe had been the first in Grand Enforcer`s considerably long life to ever do truthful, lasting harm to it, in the form of a still visible, albeit slowly healing hole in one of it`s wings and a visibly bloodied crater in the small of it`s back, punched through armor and close to the actual internal organs that lay about a foot beneath.   
  
And then there was the matter of the scarring of his arm. The Grand Enforcer had been in millions of battles almost, and in all of them it had never been forced to re-attach an arm. A toe or a finger, even it`s tail sure, but never an arm. That angered it. Any foe that could actually hurt it, angered it.   
  
And that was why Son Goten had to die.   
  
Soon.   
  
Grand Enforcer gave a guttural growl of satisfaction as it`s finger pierced into the exit that Goten had taken earlier. It gradually squirmed it`s other hand`s index finger into the opening and began to make it wider.   
  
_ The poetry that comes  
From the squaring off between  
And the circling is worth it  
Finding beauty in the dissonance  
  
_ Rei was the first to awaken after Hotaru. Usagi hadn`t been far behind mind you, but Rei and Hotaru were the ones who were awake first this morning as the latter of the two waited patiently. Rei was concerned. Deeply. Hotaru and she had never been close, but the girl had a gift for insight that Rei sometimes admitted a tinge of envy for. Right now though she could sense a fading power underlined by a terrible dormant evil that made the worst of the youma look like frightened schoolchildren heading this way with what felt like that boy the others had identified as Gohan.   
  
Hotaru shook her head as Usagi walked in, sitting down in an empty chair and struggling to stay awake. Bra and Chibi Usa were awake next, the former locking her gaze towards the direction Rei was sensing the two powers come from. A visible sign of recognition and worry danced across the girl`s face as she visibly stopped herself from rushing the window.   
  
Which soon found itself outright vaporized by a new arrival. It was something of a blur as the boy who wore that strange looking douji entered the living room with a crash, fear in his eyes, uncaring for the fact people were sleeping and rightfully so. For the most part, anyone who actually _was_ sleeping had been woken up.   
  
And most were generally in a bad mood about it. "Can anyone here heal?" Gohan asked almost frantically as Bra stood there in shock. Sure, he`d been beaten down before by her own father, but not as bad as he looked to be in now. Hotaru was the only one to reply, walking forward and seeming to pause in mid-step. Rei quickly stepped between she and her goal, shaking her head. "Something evil is in this one. Don`t," she warned fervantly. Hotaru looked around Rei at Gohan, who glared daggers into the priestess` back. "Get out of her way or else you become a stain on the ceiling," the boy threatened, putting a good bit of emphasis into his words as a golden glow began to come from his body. Rei turned around. "You don`t get it do you? He has an evil inside of him I can practically taste!"   
  
"He`s my brother and if you don`t, I`ll kill you," Gohan stated coldly and menacingly. Yuuichirou was, for once, the only one who actually did any good to diffuse the situation, forcibly yanking Rei out of the way and glaring at the boy. Gohan seemed to calm down as Bra dashed forward, having to be halted from shaking the unconcious Goten senseless.   
  
Hotaru gradually laid a hand down across Goten`s essentially crippled arm, going to work as best she could. Given that her abilities were still limited at her early age, she couldn`t really work to undo all of his injuries. Not normally anyway, you see, her abilities relied on actual energy, something that she herself might have lacked given her relatively weak body, but taking into account she was surrounded by a number of fairly strong people...   
  
"Can you donate any energy?" Hotaru asked Gohan, who gave a nod and laid a hand across Hotaru`s shoulder. Bra wasn`t far behind. Hotaru`s work began in earnest, much to Rei, and now Haruka`s, continued protests. Yuuichirou even threw in a bit of input, though he was just going on what Rei said. Usagi had fallen back asleep and everyone else was essentially half-asleep and dumbfounded as it was.   
  
Goten twitched as cuts began to shut, bones began to mend and nerves began to re-establish contact in his arm. If he were actually concious, it would probably feel akin to dipping one`s arm into ice water and then running waves of pure heat through the skin. It was a strange sensation. Pulled muscles slid back into place and a dislocated shoulder healed up perfectly. Soon after, Hotaru went to work by placing both hands to the space just above his heart.   
  
In seconds a serious majority of his wounds had begun to close up and heal, that same sensation flooding over him as he actually woke up from it. He wasn`t a happy camper mind you, the only thing that kept him from snapping out his arm and throwing a ki blast on reflex was the sight of two people. A kid that he recognized from earlier as either looking like or actually being his older brother, Goten didn`t remember that part much, and the visual of his adopted little sister towering over him concernedly.   
  
"Dead yet?" Bra asked cynically.   
  
"You aren`t that lucky," he replied with a smirk. "Damn," Bra grumbled briefly. Gohan blinked, and Hotaru remained quiet. _"These two are pretty morbid,"_ the two thought in unison as Gohan and Hotaru took a step back. Goten remained on the floor briefly before working his way to laying on his elbows. "Feels like I just got run over by a truck," he mused. "You look like it too, but that`s beside the point," Bra reminded him sharply.   
  
Goten frowned a bit and got up to his hands and knees, turning around finally and facing Bra with a deadpanned expression that deserved a minor chuckle under any other circumstance. "You`re really one major pain in my ass, ya know that?" Goten asked.   
  
Bra gave a nod and a grin, and then promptly threw herself into hugging the life out of him. Pretty much everyone gave a few blinks and shrugged. Weirder had happened, most involved were virtually used to the dramas by now. The fact these two were(for the most part) not members of the group that had been built up over the years didn`t do much to bring major sympathy from those other than Usagi, Chibi Usa, Hotaru and Gohan. Rei remained off to the side, quietly studying Goten as if waiting for him to transform into some evil demon creature any second.   
  
"What happened?" Bra asked. "Big ugly that needed to brush it`s teeth," Goten replied while getting up to his knees and setting the girl back down. He then finally turned around and virtually at an instant, the tension became visible in the room as Goten and Gohan stared at one another. Tension born of unfamiliarity despite their connections to one another, tension so obvious that nobody even thought to speak or move. Mainly since there was a slight fear of a nuclear war breaking out in the apartment, but thankfully the two didn`t seem violent.   
  
Cold apathy took effect for the time being as Gohan looked off to the side. Goten shrugged.   
  
The tension, for the moment, lifted as Goten looked back to Bra, all business now. He was about to speak when Rei finally broke the silence of everyone else. "Just who are you to begin with?" She demanded. Goten replied almost automatically. "Son Goten. I`m his," he pointed over to Gohan. "Little brother from the future."   
  
"You`re evil," Rei muttered. "Whatever you`re smokin`, put it away," Goten replied harshly. "There`s also something big, nasty and at least twice as evil as I supposedly am headed this way," he stated simply.   
  
Unlike before, this actually drew everyone`s attention. "I hurt it but probably not enough to stop it. Chances are it`ll pop up wherever he found me," he pointed back to Gohan for emphasis. "The Tunnel?" Bra wondered aloud. "Seems that way," Chibi Usa intervened. Gohan remained quiet through all of this, exchanging a conversation of glances with Hotaru. In maybe twenty seconds the two had established a silent rapport with one another that said everything without words. They were remarkably close even at a distance it seemed.   
  
"What tunnel?" Usagi, Makoto, Ami, Ryo, Michiru, Mamoru and Minako all asked at the same time. "The Passage through Time," "The Tunnel of Time," "Puu`s Gateway," came three answers at once from Gohan, Bra and Chibi Usa.   
  
"And what`s coming through it?" Rei asked. Goten took a moment to think. "Big, mean, aggressive, tough and gross. I blew the thing`s arm off and it slapped me with it," Goten recalled a few seconds later. "Attacked me out of no where," he stated. "Maybe it was one of the tunnel demons?" Gohan suggested. Goten shook his head. "No, the tunnel demons were pansies compared to that thing. Hell, it smacked away my best attack with some effort," Goten added a few seconds later.   
  
"And let me guess, your best attack can destroy the world without even trying," Mamoru quipped in an out of character burst of sarcasm that seemed to drip from the thoughts of virtually everyone but the three visitors and Yuuichirou, the last two looking at least a bit perplexed by it all. "Pretty much," Goten shrugged. Everyone rolled their eyes.   
  
Planet destroyers were becoming pretty old after a while, weren`t they?   
  
_ There was a time that the pieces fit  
But I watched them fall away  
Mildewed and smoldering  
Strangled by our coveting  
  
_ "Then we`d best think something up on how to beat it," Ami intervened for once in a fairly sensible sort of way. Makoto glanced over at Ryo, who shrugged off her question before she could even ask it. "Don`t bother, my ability to see into the future never gave a hint of whatever you guys are facing this time," he exclaimed. Makoto frowned. "Figures," Haruka muttered. Yuuichirou was still in the dark but he knew to keep his mouth shut for the time being. Quiet was an art he had learned to master lately.   
  
"Anything you could tell that made it seem actually killable?" Bra asked. Goten gave a nod. "Yeah, I blew a hole in a wing, and drilled at least a bit of the way into the small of it`s back. Didn`t do much really, but I suppose it`s proof the thing isn`t invincible," he answered. Rei spoke next. "What about it`s ability to put severed limbs back into place?"   
  
"For one, it`s disgusting. For another, it barely seemed to slow it down aside from causing major pain," he recalled. Usagi was the next up, and in a rare burst of strategic thinking, the future queen asked the question. "How were you fighting it to begin with?" She asked. "Every style I know," Goten replied with a tilt of the head. "No, not that. What kind of attacks?" She was clearer this time. "Energy mainly, I wasn`t about to try and punch the thing for most of the fight, don`t remember if I kicked it or anything like that though," he replied. Usagi rubbed her chin in thought and Haruka intervened after that. "What kind of energy?"   
  
"Just plain ol` ki..." Goten replied with a blink. Minako cut in. "How much damage did each attack get in?" She asked. "Could`ve been better if I had some help," Goten replied. Gohan moved into the conversation after that. "Could you have beaten it alone?" He asked. "Not very likely," he replied. "Chances are it`s also become stronger," Gohan mused. "Stronger?" Mamoru asked warily. "Thing about most of the super powered killing machines I`ve encountered is that they tend to get a bit stronger if they don`t beat you the first time and if they get beaten in they come back even worse," he replied, obviously referencing Vegeta, Cell, Bojack and his own father in the process. "Not to mention a bit smarter since they know to avoid any technique you used to fight them earlier," Goten added.   
  
"Oh... Great," Michiru mumbled sardonically. "Isn`t it though?" Bra asked. Haruka was about to interrupt when Usagi hopped back into the planning, still in Patton Mode from the looks of things. "Is it possible that if we used our abilities we could boost you guys?" She asked. Gohan, Bra and Goten raised an eyebrow in unison. "How so?" Goten asked.   
  
"Like... One of you guys cuts off a part of it, one of us could try and hit that part with an attack and see if we could seal it up so it couldn`t heal," she answered. "Seems possible," Goten conceded. "Are you forgetting that we don`t even know what we could do to the thing to begin with?" Michiru asked. Usagi shrugged. "Got a better idea?"   
  
Michiru didn`t reply.   
  
"`Kay then," Usagi retorted with a smug look of confidence.   
  
"So far our only strategy is to use you guys as support fighters, then have me and Gohan try and fight the thing head on," Goten summarized, earning a fairly deadpan look from Bra. "What about me?"   
  
Goten looked at her quizzically. "What about you?" He asked. "I`m strong enough to fight head on with you," she replied sharply. "And do you know what kind of danger that means?" Goten asked. "Does it matter?"   
  
"You could get fried," Gohan started.   
  
"Bashed in," Goten continued.   
  
"Beaten."   
  
"Baked."   
  
"Sharp things you didn`t _want_ to know about shoved in places you didn`t _need_ to know exist."   
  
"Stabbed."   
  
"Impaled."   
  
"Bitten in half."   
  
"Burned alive."   
  
"Ripped to little fleshy Bra chunklets..."   
  
Bra intervened. "I get the point," she grumbled. "You two really _are_ brothers," she mused cynically. "But that doesn`t mean I`m going to hang back when I can do some good," she added a few seconds later. Goten and Gohan exchanged sideways glances at one another briefly before giving a shrug. "Your funeral," Goten stated. Pretty much everyone outside the three looked at them as if they were insane. They were probably almost right, but it would be best not to think about that.   
  
Not when you had to count on these people to keep you alive...   
  
"Any ideas where we should all set ourselves up?" Minako asked while cracking her knuckles. She was an adrenaline junkie you see, deep down that is. She had acquired the urge to do dangerous things over the past years, right down to bungee jumping from a hot air balloon some two or three miles up from the ground. Without a parachute in case the bungee failed no less. And she`d done it twice in the same day.   
  
This, for her, was like letting a little kid have a million dollars and turning them loose in a toy store. "Probably around the Tower," Haruka replied ahead of time. "That would make the most sense," Usagi stated. "Then I hope you guys have some equivelent to the Dragonballs because a lot of people are probably going to die," Goten said with a fairly unexpected burst of cold in his voice. He appeared to be visibly used to death, that was something that made Rei tense up briefly. "And how do you know? Going to kill them yourself?"   
  
"If I was, everyone would be dead right now but him," He pointed to Gohan. "That thing`s mean enough to crack Time, now you tell me if I`m wrong about a lot of bystanders getting whacked," he demanded just as coldly as before. "Drop it, both of you," Chibi Usa cut in. Goten shrugged and Rei snorted. "Then we`ll just have to try and make sure to minimize outside deaths," Gohan stated.   
  
"Deal," Goten agreed. "Try and keep it from letting out any of it`s ki breath though, makes any monster movie you`ve ever seen look weak," he added, looking to Gohan and Bra as he did so. "What doesn`t?" Gohan asked. "Enough with the chatter, we`re losing time we could be using to get into position," Michiru said with a nod.   
  
"Alright," Mamoru said while wiping his brow with a taut smirk. "I know I could probably get Usagi and Chibi Usa into a decent area pretty quickly," he volunteered. Both gave a nod. "Michiru and I can run where we need to be quickly enough," Haruka added. "I`m at least close to good enough to measure up against Haruka as far as running goes," Makoto tossed in. "I can probably at least keep up with Mako enough to not get too outpaced," Minako added. Her 'early morning exercise routine' of running to school late for close to five years had paid off in the end as far as her athletic attributes were concerned.   
  
"I can get where I need to be alone," Rei added a few moments later. "I can probably keep with Rei if I try hard enough," Ami added. Gohan glanced over to Hotaru. "I`ll need someone to carry me," she mumbled sheepishly. "He can then," Chibi Usa pointed at Gohan, who went a bit red in the face. He could almost swear he saw something of a glint in Chibi Usa and Bra`s eyes as if they had practically planned to shove the two of them together. For once, Hotaru`s physical weaknesses had actually done something relatively meaningful.   
  
"Alright then," Ryo cut in again. "I guess I`ll run along after Rei and Ami just to drag either of them away from damage if they get knocked out," he suggested. "I`m with him," Yuuichirou added. Nobody bothered rejecting their last minute additions to the hastily thrown together plan. Especially not when the ground rumbled lightly as if a small tremor had passed through it.   
  
"And that would be the big ugly about to make his grand entrance," Goten explained with a shake of the head. "Gonna be cutting it close, aren`t we?" Bra asked. "We always are," Gohan answered while turning towards the window, which hadn`t exactly recovered from the damage he had inflicted on it earlier. "Seems that way," Goten replied before blasting off into the air through the still-open window, halting in mid-flight and then rocketing toward the tower. Bra wasn`t far behind and the room quickly emptied until it was down to Gohan and Hotaru, Rei having been the last one out after everyone who could, did a transformation to their best abilities.   
  
"You know... For some reason I think I should be worried," Gohan mused. "But I`m not," he explained a second later while turning around. Hotaru finished her transformation(mind you he, Ryo, Mamoru and Yuuichirou had all kept their eyes shut during these little outfit changes) and spoke up a few seconds later. "I know what you mean," she replied while stepping over to him. "Turn around and let`s get going," she ordered.   
  
He did as told allowed her to climb up onto his back, and pretty soon the two had taken to the skies. He could see an ethereal glow beginning to consume the base of the tower, beams of light dashing off from it as the skies seemed to darken. "And now I really _am_ worried," he complained. Hotaru shrugged. "Don`t be," she told him. "Where do you want me to set you down?" He asked. "That building, right there. The one across from the tower," Hotaru replied. Again, he did as told. The building was a sky scraper almost, coming close to the height of the tower itself but not quite adding up.   
  
Hotaru hopped down from Gohan`s back, the aptly titled Silence Glaive suddenly appearing in her hand as she did so. Gohan barely noticed._ "This isn`t going to be a very easy fight,"_ he thought to himself. Bra and Goten seemed to have set themselves up atop the tower itself. "I`d better go join them," he said while firing up an aura around himself. Hotaru didn`t let him leave just yet though, planting a quick little peck onto his cheek just before he could go.   
  
"What was that for?" He asked with a blush that spread over most of his face. "Why not?" She asked. Gohan gave a nod to her fairly cryptic logic and felt his stomach doing flops as he turned back around and gathered energy up. Streaks of golden light rippled from the top of the building around him and a pair of golden lightning bolts slammed into his aura, turning it golden as his hair elongated out a few inches, eyes fading to a jade-like tone and the muscles of his body becoming a bit more defined.   
  
Super Saiyan Gohan rocketed from the rooftop at full power and soon joined his brother and Bra, the latter of whom was snickering to herself. "What?" He asked. Goten didn`t say anything. He was still in normal and didn`t seem intimidated by being around someone like Gohan either. Bra on the other hand seemed passively edgy about it but a bit too amused by his still-present blush to do anything but snicker.   
  
A lethal silence passed in the group as the tower`s base strarted to warp and bend from the power beneath it. Goten and Gohan retained their mutual silence towards one another for some reason or another. That permeable tension had returned two-fold as the battle for the survival of the world, perhaps for the survival of the entire billion year period of Setsuna`s reign, was about to begin.   
  
_ Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any  
Sense of compassion  
Between supposed lovers  
Between supposed brothers  
  
_ Hotaru stood atop the rooftop, Silence Glaive in hand and an unusually resolved look on her face. Unknown to her, a few yards away, to her right, stood a woman holding a staff of her own, similar posture and build to what Hotaru would probably end up with if she lived through this to age into her twenties. Darkly green, lengthy hair blew off to the side as the woman watched the end of the world come knocking at the door of her reign as the Gaurdian of the Passage of Time.   
  
There was a last cry from the steel and then the entire tower, with everyone on it but a select trio at the absolute peak of the building, seemed to burst into flames and liquify before outright vaporizing. A colossal roar filled the area and a monstrous hand shot out of the widening portal in the ground.   
  
The Grand Enforcer was coming...   
  


_ End Part Five_  


  


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**Author`s Note:** Hope you enjoyed the fic up to now, cuz it ain`t over yet!  
  



	6. Chop Suey!

  
**Author`s Note:** It`s part six, behbeh. We`re just a few steps from the suspenseful end! Or something... Oh yeah, thanks for the positive reviews(the few of them in general that I`ve gotten for this one :P), it`s nice to know people read this stuff. If not for FF.net`s new policy of listing it as "G-PG13 only" on default without you setting it to show all, I`d probably have more reviews but... Ah well. *Smacks the FF.net staff with Dende.* God as a beating stick... Heh...  
  
**Disclaimer:** I don`t own. Yeah, suck for me, huh?  
  


* * *

  
**Hybrid Theory: Evolution **  
_Chop Suey!   
  
  
  
_

Roughly sixty seconds ago, Tokyo Tower faded from the face of the Earth with nearly everyone on it dying in a particularly brutal sort of way. Age, race, gender, species, nationality and religious preference meant nothing. If you were on the tower, you were dead. It was that simple, with only three exceptions. Thirty seconds ago, the portal that existed beneath the base of the tower was violently opened up by an entity known solely as the Grand Enforcer. Again, in a particularly brutal sort of way, this time blasting a visible crater where the tower had once stood. Fifteen seconds ago, the Grand Enforcer finished getting to it`s feet and roared out a deathly war cry that had dire effects for not just the city at large, but the entire world. You see, all through the surrounding blocks around what had been the tower, glass shattered. Miles away, zoo animals roared and screeched. Half a world away, children woke up screaming.   
  
Grand Enforcer held a sort of style to it that went with an unspoken ego. It made it`s entrances as it itself had been made: Massive and spectacular. The skies were blackened by it`s sheer presence, the ground beneath it`s feet cracked and it sunk in by almost a foot from it`s own weight. Wings spanned close to a total of eight hundred feet unfolded outward and flapped briefly, blowing several cars and people from the ground and into the air. It`s tail languidly curled up around it`s feet and then, like a whip, cracked through the air, plunging into a nearby building and crushing it, and then the building behind it. Crab-like pincer claws resting on thin, scrawny looking arms snapped shut with near silence. Arms that could shatter mountains in one fell swoop snapped about as the creature stretched.   
  
It could almost smell the weakness of this world. Of this entire universe.   
  
And then it`s senses detected no less than twelve powers aligned to stop it, three resting above, the other nine scattered about the city. The three strongest, in terms of actual power, were resting above it. The others were all magic-based powers, and one the Grand Enforcer sensed right off the bat. This Time`s gaurdian. The wreaked of a pure heart. All of them did. But then, only one truly caught it`s attention.   
  
Goten hovered above it with a battle ready expression crossing his face, blackened hair beginning to waver about as gold pulsed through it. Grand Enforcer picked up what felt like energy being ripped from the surrounding area, funneling directly into his body. He faded from view in a flash of white-gold light that soon faded into a golden aura, his hair now golden as well and his eyes a teal-shade of green, a wave of energy washing off of him in semi-destructive fashion as he glared down.   
  
Ah, that`s when it noticed. His heart was pure but his soul wasn`t. It was an old soul indeed, measuring in at nearly a million years. And a battle hardened soul.   
  
Part of it also remained evil. Grand Enforcer snorted. No wonder this one had been such a hard fighter, he had a soul filled with thousands of years of actual combat, even seeing this Time`s medium gods in action. Even a few confrontations with the boy who hovered among the three of them with near impunity to the first one`s power. He seemed the strongest of them all, even with the potential latent power within the first one`s body and soul.   
  
This would be an interesting battle. Grand Enforcer wasn`t looking forward to it though.   
  
_ Wake up  
Grab a brush and put a little makeup  
Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup  
Why'd you leave the keys upon the table?  
Here you go create another fable  
  
_ Goten grimaced. "Any ideas on how to attack it?" He asked the other two. "You fought it first, shouldn`t you know?" Bra asked sceptically. "Your the genius here, not me," Goten countered. "Is Bra quick enough to keep it distracted without taking much damage?" Gohan interjected. Goten took a moment to think as Bra sent him a pestering gaze. "Yeah, she`s fast enough," he finally, reluctantly admitted. "You think you can handle it?" He asked, glancing over at Bra. The girl was obviously her father`s daughter.   
  
"I can handle anything that big ugly piece o` crap throws at me!"   
  
Definately her father`s daughter.   
  
Gohan and Goten gave each other another of those mutually apathetic glances and then blurred out of view for a while, leaving Bra to her own devices. Grand Enforcer`s eyes seemed to follow movement towards the ground to his right though. It barely seemed to even notice her.   
  
And that was a very bad move. You see, even if she had her father`s power and her brother`s sword, there was one other tool that young Bra Briefs had at her disposal. A single tool that could probably make any sane being in the universe tremble in absolute fear. It wasn`t a physical tool mind you, but it showed through with her appearance fairly well.   
  
Bra Briefs was as much her mother`s daughter as she was her father`s. What that meant was that she had Bulma`s temper. What that meant was that the Grand Enforcer had just stamped "Kill Me" all over it`s forehead.   
  
"Hey ugly ass, missing someone?!" Bra demanded, pooling up a bit of energy into her right hand and throwing it down. Normally the attack would`ve hit that lovely "Kill Me" sign stamped onto it`s forehead and all, but since Grand Enforcer made the unfortunate move of turning it`s back on her, it struck right into that semi-wounded point at the small of it`s back. With a roar, it turned to face Bra, eyes set in that usual bloodthirsty craze they had been forced into over the eons.   
  
Another roar and the world turned white for an instant, fading back to normal to reveal a brilliantly orange beam of laser-like intensity shot from the mouth of the Grand Enforcer. Bra hovered off to the side with a cocky grin, she`d dodged it by only inches, but a few inches could mean the world. With a blur, she reappeared on the creature`s snout, an annoying smirk replacing that former grin as she fanned her hands in front of her face and began to power up, an aura forming around her.   
  
"Taiyoken!"   
  
At ranges of a few hundred feet, a Taiyoken is visible like the sun, and won`t do much to effect your sight. At medium ranges of a few dozen feet, it`s like staring into a dozen flash-bang grenades going off at once. Blinking may help, but regardless, you`ll be blinded for a few seconds. At point blank, the attack can fry your retinas and induce light burns to your skin, and combined with the ferocity of an angry young girl of Saiyan and human heritage with an inherent habit of overkilling everything she does, it`s not exactly a lovely thing to be on the recieving end of, as the Grand Enforcer found it.   
  
With a yelp that wasn`t exactly something you could often hear of the creature, it lurched back and brought it`s right hand up, attempting to swat Bra away before covering it`s eyes. Bra dodged with an uncanny warrior`s grace however, hovering up in front of it in place view and giving every sort of offensive hand gesture in the book. And a few that hadn`t been written yet circa early-2002.   
  
_ You wanted to  
Grab a brush and put a little makeup  
You wanted to  
Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup  
You wanted to  
Why'd you leave the keys upon the table  
You wanted to  
  
_ Mamoru watched in near awe at the scene playing out a few hundred yards ahead of him. His eyes had recovered after a moment or two of blindness but that didn`t really help matters as far as everything else went. Hell, at the moment he felt pretty miniscule compared to the fighting actually taking place, not to mention the fact that he actually had enough power to do battle with creatures that could`ve annihilated the planet before, at least once or twice during his run as a super hero of sorts. This though?   
  
For all that power he`d possessed, he felt like an ant watching a pair of tanks ram into one another repeatedly. Usagi and Chibi Usa, both of whom having transformed into their fuller powered forms, stood by with their game faces on. It could`ve been unnerving to him to see his wife and his daughter as they were right now if he didn`t know that beneath that hardened expression mutually held by the two, they were still bickering clutzes. Chibi Usa wasn`t as bad mind you, but in her early years she seemed to have grown into a similar type of inherent clumsiness that plagued Usagi to this day, though the elder of the two seemed to be growing out of it.   
  
Amusing really. If not for the three hundred foot tall genocidal demon that was currently trying to swat a girl down like a fly and meeting minimal success.   
  
There was a whistling sound and suddenly, quite literally from no where, a trench appeared running through the street and ending at a lightpost, which crumpled up at the base and toppled over. Bra climbed out, a bruise visible on her cheek with a trickle of blood running from it`s center. "That didn`t feel nice," the girl quipped. "You alright?" Chibi Usa asked. "I`ve been worse," Bra answered before igniting a now greenish aura around herself and launching from the ground back into the fold, right as the Grand Enforcer let out a loud screech and stumbled back from some impact or another into it`s chest.   
  
Usagi could almost make out a small figure ramming shoulder first into the gigantic creature, which was still working to shrug off the effect of the Taiyoken from earlier.   
  
_ I don't think you trust  
In my self righteous suicide  
I cry, when angels deserve to die  
  
_ Another cracking sound audible from a quarter mile away. Ami and Rei dove out of the way as a figure slammed into the ground, causing a dome-like explosion of dust and dirt to ripple up, which was promptly blown away by a youthful looking figure letting out a yell and rocketing back up. Ami would`ve probably asked Gohan if he was alright given the force of his impact, but he had left before she could even get up. Rei let Yuuichirou help her up a few seconds later, jaw slacked open.   
  
"How did he live through that?" She pondered to herself as Ryo tugged Ami from the ground and stared. He, unlike Yuuichirou, was actually sane enough to actually realize just how suicidal they were to be standing around near a fight like that, let alone indirectly participating in it. There was another cracking sound and the Grand Enforcer stumble back, a visible dent in it`s chest as another figure, this one larger than Gohan, blurred away, reappearing up in the skies and calling out something or another that only Rei and Ami, with their senses heightened by the transformations they had gone through, could hear at first. And then came the echo effect afterward, followed by a downrush of air that felt like static electricity being jammed into your face.   
  
"**_KAME HAME HA!!!_**"   
  
The world turned bluish-white for a split second and then an enormous beam blazed from the point the figure in the skies had settled in, stretching out in a direct line towards the point that the Grand Enforcer had suffered damage in. There was almost a blur of movement as the pincer claw-hands shot up into a cross and then a loud explosion that almost resembled a nuclear blast moving sideways, burning perfect gaps into several buildings in it`s path.   
  
Two combined attacks, these obviously not from any of the three who had been fighting Grand Enforcer head on, rolled into view. Both attacks kicked up a visible trail of dust as they sped in from the left of the creature, rolling around it`s feet briefly before lifting from the ground like missiles and trailing up it`s body, leaving visible burn marks in the process and then heading into the now open wound on it`s right claw, spiraling around the arm then ramming into the slightly ripped, bleeding point of it`s body.   
  
Another blast, this one smaller. Grand Enforcer howled in obvious pain and moved to conceal it`s wounded, now decaying claw-hand.   
  
It could be hurt after all.   
  
_ Wake up  
Grab a brush and put a little makeup  
Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup  
Why'd you leave the keys upon the table?  
Here you go create another fable  
  
_ Haruka and Michiru smirked in unison. The thing wasn`t invincible to them after all, hell it seemed to actually be hurt by them more than by the others. This was an obviously good sign. "It can bleed, it can die," Haruka muttered. "Should we try again?" Michiru asked, mentally aiming for the chest wound. "Not yet, it could track it back to us," Haruka replied.   
  
Grand Enforcer growled in annoyance. It`s claw hand had turned into little more than rock. Not even useful for crushing a building anymore. With a grunt, the creature yanked it`s own, now useless arm off and tossed it aside, crushing a house or two in the process and killing at least ten people as a result.   
  
It didn`t care.   
  
The girl appeared in front of it again, tauntingly smiling with her right index and middle fingers placed against her forehead, an eerie glow sparkling up into view there. It`s eyes were still sore but it`s sight had recovered enough to see where she was. There there was a sound the Grand Enforcer didn`t much like, the sound of a beam attack being cut loose. Then the girl spoke. "Makankosappo!" She yelled, right as he attack smacked hard into the Grand Enforcer`s remaining claw-arm, only to detonate instantly. The Makankosappo(Special Beam Cannon, if you`re wondering) works by drilling into a target until it detonates. The target point it explodes on, is generally hard enough to prevent it from drilling in very far, if at all.   
  
This was proof that Bra was pretty much outgunned. She had put a good amount of power into an attack that had utterly failed. Then again, the armoring of the claw was now bruises and deformed, imploded slightly, so that was good proof that she stood a pretty decent chance of at least surviving. Really, why did Gohan and Goten have to get so worked up and try to make sure she didn`t fight the thing head-on like she had just shown she could?   
  
Well, for starters, there was the loud sound of a whistle and then a vicious impact as what felt like a wall made of titanium smacked into her entire body for one. For another, there was the dozen or so minor and medium injuries, as well as a severe injury to her head, that this caused, followed of course by the brutal flying trip through what had to be twelve blocks, fighting against her own momentum all the way and then, _then_, she slammed through the glass window of the fourteenth floor of an office building, tearing through the wall behind it, smacking into a support beam and generally causing a good bit of upheaval in the already emptying office building.   
  
That was reason enough, wasn`t it?   
  
Bra limply sat against the somewhat-cratered support beam of the building, catching her breath. The sword pressed into her back didn`t really help things at the moment, but thankfully it was just resting against her, rather than being used to stab her or anything like that.   
  
The Grand Enforcer snorted and set it`s hands in front of it, and a tremor followed suit. It was light, just light enough to avoid knocking down houses and buildings, but hard enough to knock someone from their feet. Unearthly could best describe it as a crimson sphere formed around it`s hands, now pressed wrist to wrist. Cracks of energy shocked off of it, and it spun with tornado-like intensity before the creature let out a yell loud enough to jar someone`s ears for a moment or two.   
  
_ You wanted to  
Grab a brush and put a little makeup  
You wanted to  
Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup  
You wanted to  
Why'd you leave the keys upon the table  
You wanted to  
  
_ Slow motion filled her eyes as Bra watched the attack begin to gather up even more intensity. People were running about in the office building, her head spun and her body was sore, but she willed herself to her feet. Energy gathered around her and she thrust her hands out, a faintly visible shield of energy picking up around the building.   
  
Grand Enforcer howled and opened up with it`s attack. It streaked in, met Bra`s shield and quickly snapped right through it. It was the end of Bra`s life, and she closed her eyes in anticipation. At least, it would have been the end. Would have been her fiery, blazing, out-with-a-bang type of heroic end that her brother and Goten would`ve been proudly saddened by. The kind of end she had almost felt was well earned, saving the lives of those around her.   
  
Would have. Could have. Probably should have.   
  
If not for the visible wall of utter silence that appeared in the path of the beam at the last possible nanosecond. Bra laughed to herself and fell forward, passing out as the Grand Enforcer met the power of Saturn head on and found itself at a stalemate, unable to blast through the barrier as it had with so many others. A toughened balance had formed there, magic against raw ki, and Saturn`s wall slowly began to push the monster`s beam back. Another explosion and the tops of a few buildings were sheered off.   
  
Grand Enforcer gave in and turned away, only to find itself on the recieving end of a punch like it hadn`t felt in millions of years. It almost felt like some with a freight train-sized fist decked it with everything they head as a trickle of blood rained from it`s mouth in the opposite direction of the side of it`s face that it had suffered the impact. Hard to believe this kind of force was thrown into an attack made by a twelve year old half-alien boy who wasn`t even at his limit yet.   
  
Grand Enforcer showed it`s speed now, going with the impact in a stumble but turning around as it did so. Gohan darted down and passed through the gap in one of it`s wings, darting upward and dodging the other wing by a few feet, only to get smacked from behind by the bullwhip of a tail that the monster head. He flew forward from the impact, meeting the back of the Grand Enforcer`s hand face first and flying back only to get smacked by the tail again.   
  
Impacts that could`ve crushed mountains had rained into him, and he was still alive. And concious no less. Gohan flew back for several hundred feet, and up into the air as well, before finding himself caught by another figure who was about the size of his father. Heck, it almost felt the same as when his father had held him after Bojack had come close to crushing the life out of him, which in and of itself was another bitter irony. Even the person holding him looked similar.   
  
Goten shot downward, carrying Gohan with him and touching down on the sidewalk out of sight of the Grand Enforcer. Gohan was wobbly, and a bit banged up, but he seemed to be alright for the most part. "Snap out of it," Goten demanded. He shook Gohan for a time until the other swatted his hands away and stumbled forward, collapsing to his hands and knees. Gohan coughed up a bit of blood onto the sidewalk and wiped his mouth, obviously disoriented and obviously needing a chance to catch his breath.   
  
"I`ll hold him, get your act together and get back out there," Goten ordered, jumping into the air and letting gravity carry him back down. Gohan looked up in time to spot Goten twisting out of the way of the same tail that had ravaged him moments before, grabbing himself in mid-fall with his ki and taking flight to deliver a number of machine gun-styled energy attacks into the Grand Enforcer`s side.   
  
"Guess there`s hope for Goten after all," Gohan thought aloud with a wheezing cough. He pounded himself in the stomach a few times to help clear his throat, spitting the blood and snot off to the side and then getting to his feet. Knuckles were cracked, limbs stretched and lips curled into a scowl as he took flight, back towards the battle.   
  
_ I don't think you trust  
In my self righteous suicide  
I cry, when angels deserve to die  
In my self righteous suicide  
I cry, when angels deserve to die  
  
_ Grand Enforcer staggered under the assault of an irate Super Saiyan with a seemingly limitless stamina and an equally large power reserve, with every intention of using both. The entity let loose with a blinding swipe of it`s remaining claw arm, missing Goten by a wide margin but sheering a sky scraper right in half and toppling it over into the path of that same side`s plain arm, which simply smashed the building`s top half into thousands of pieces in an attempt to punch into Goten, who seemed to have turned into a being of pure speed, landing a few hundred feet in front of the demon with a smirk. Then it happened again...   
  
Goten felt another piece of knowledge seeming to come to him as if out of no where. He felt himself automatically slide into position as well, doing a few odd gestures in the process before resting in a manner that seemed similar to what one would expect a charioteer to be doing, save that his legs were placed widely apart. Hands clasped into fists and his energy began to sky rocket. "Thunder Claw..."   
  
Spirals of blue energy, resembling diamonds almost, flew off from his fists, and the world seemed to gleem green for an instant. "**_Attack!_**" Goten screamed, a tornado of fire arcing out from in front of his fists and slinging itself around Grand Enforcer`s body, constricting like a snake and obscuring the appearance of even the towering giant of a monster for several seconds before literally turning into a tornado of fire, hot enough to rival the sun.   
  
It was the same way he had learned the Kaio Ken. It just came on instinct as if he had seen it somewhere long ago, possibly before he was even born. His versions were always stronger, but at the same time tended to be more reckless. His Kaio Ken hurt him just as much as it powered him up, his Thunder Claw was far stronger than anything Pikkon or the West Kaio could probably throw combined, and yet it lacked the precision of the original.   
  
Not to say that precision _mattered_ when in essentially point blank range with a three hundred foot tall, several hundred thousand ton killing machine hellbent on killing you. But still...   
  
The tornado continued until finally a pair of slightly scorched wings tore out of it, flapping harshly and blowing it right out as a result. The Grand Enforcer emerged, now charred black and still smoking, but otherwise unharmed for the most part. It snorted and then thrown it`s right foot out. Goten barely dodged as the creature sought to stomp him out like the ant he was in comparison, and the creature`s foot shattered clear into the sewers and continued until down to it`s shin. It was vulnerable now. Goten powered up and screamed.   
  
"**_KAIO KEN TIMES TWO!!_**"   
  
A flash of red and then a violent impact jarred the Grand Enforcer senseless, Goten`s right foot embedded in it`s neck with enough force to shatter a small moon. The entity howled in further pain as the still-Kaio Ken enhanced Goten drove his foot hard into the creature`s neck, crushing through natural armoring and then sheering out as Goten broke from the kick with a spin, gathering power into his hand and screaming yet again.   
  
"**_KIENZAN!!_**"   
  
He formed the attack in one hand and threw it. An instant passed and the Grand Enforcer lunged forward, only to feel the attack saw through the material of it`s right wing, and then it`s left wing, darting towards the ground and creating a visible trench that sawed straight down almost fifty feet before stopping. Goten soon faded from the Kaio Ken, finding himself smacked by the side of Grand Enforcer`s face as the creature flailed about trying to get rid of him like he was the mosquito from Hell.   
  
Goten flew back several dozen feet and found himself caught by a smaller figure, arms wrapped around his upper body. "Guess it`s your turn to sit this one out," Gohan quipped. "Don`t get cocky," Goten uttered out, rubbing his sore jaw.   
  
Another brilliant flash of light and what had to be thousands of pinkish tinted heart-shaped bolts of energy flew from behind Grand Enforcer, striking into it`s wounded back as it turned to face Gohan and Goten, both of whom had to stifle a snicker at just exactly _what_ was causing that kind of damage to an entity like the Grand Enforcer.   
  
"Gotta give `em an A for inventiveness," Gohan finally said. "I`ll second that," Goten replied, drifting free of his older-yet-younger brother and hovering under his own power. Gohan didn`t really have a sense for conversation in the middle of a battle, but with the Grand Enforcer stumbling forward in pain and falling to it`s hands and knees as another wave of those heart-like attacks struck into it, he figured he had a bit of time to ask anyway. "Just where did you learn Kaio Ken?"   
  
Goten shrugged. "I don`t have a clue. I just needed some way to boost my power during a spar against Vegeta before he snapped and I knew it," he replied. "Guess it`s a good thing I didn`t use the Super version," he mused while drifting down a bit. "Probably would`ve knocked me out just now," he explained. "I`m not even gonna ask," Gohan replied. "Good, I`m too lazy to explain anyway."   
  
"Figures," Gohan retorted. The younger-yet-older of the two took one last glance at Goten and then blasted towards the now rising Grand Enforcer, who, to be quite blunt about it, looked rather flamingly pissed off at what had just occured.   
  
Gohan powered himself up to his limits in the first form, not quite confident that he would need to break out his trump card just yet, and formed a ki barrier a few inches in front of him. The demon-dragon turned to face him and brought it`s left arm up as if it was about to backhand him. He put a burst of speed into his strike and began to barrel roll, extending both arms forward and concentrating his energy into his hands.   
  
There was a crack. Another crack and then a tear. Then a full blown explosion and the Grand Enforcer roared in pain as it`s remaining claw arm was promptly ripped off as Son Gohan literally tore through the weak point of the joint that bound it`s body to it`s arm, a gush of dark green blood signifying the tear. Gohan flew onward with his eyes shut, entering into a hard number of flips and spins as the force of having slammed into what felt hard enough to pass as tougher than diamond got to him, washing over his body.   
  
_ "Now I know what a battering ram feels like,"_ he mused sourly to himself while forcing himself to slam into the ground, bounce back up and in a flip, touch down. He ended up directly in front of one Kino Makoto and one Aino Minako. Both stared at him as if he was insane for a moment or two before he collapsed to his hands and knees, muttering a bit of profanity and laughing to himself.   
  
"Get `im already," Gohan ordered. Both of the two senshi blinked and then watched the Grand Enforcer move to pick up it`s severed arm...   
  
Grand Enforcer yelled out as a maelstrom of what looked like oak tree leaves rained onto it, disorienting it and causing it to stagger before what seemed like a chain of hearts jammed itself into it`s side. The leaves seemed to evaporate the severed limb entirely however, and the chain seemed to worm around inside the wound and cause a bit of decay to form there before the monster, through sheer force of will, halted the painful act. The chain continued however, twirling around inside the wound and causing unbridled pain before it, and the rain of leaves, ceased, leaving the creature to stumble from side to side.   
  
_ Father! Father! Father! Father!  
Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit  
Father, into your hands  
  
_ Hotaru took a deep breath and held her staff close. The Grand Enforcer stumbled towards the building she stood upon and fell over onto it`s side. That was what she needed though, and with a last look around, Hotaru Tomoe took a leap of faith over the edge, Silence Glaive spinning as her attack began in earnest.   
  
_ Why have you forsaken me  
In your eyes forsaken me  
In your thoughts forsaken me  
In your heart forsaken me, oh  
  
_ Gohan felt Hotaru`s movements in abstract horror, turning around in time to see her jump. Powering up again, he shot up from the ground, rushing towards the scene. Too far though. She`d hit the ground before he could get there...   
  
And then came what looked like a tornado rising up from around the falling Hotaru. Lightning shot out around it and clouds overhead swirled. The sky was now entirely black, darker than night and yet daylight seemed to persist. Gohan halted in mid-flight as the Grand Enforcer howled in pain, a Silence Glaive Surprise drilling into it in the most brutal fashion possible, the insides showing what looked like black fire streaking down into it. An explosion of silence. Streaks of dark green fluid seemed to rise up from the base of the attack, and Gohan felt himself being blown both away and towards it at the same time. With another flare of ki, he continued onward, lightning crackling by him. Hotaru`s energy signature was in there somewhere, and he had to find it.   
  
The attack finally faded, leaving Hotaru hovering in the air in a near bow as if having just completed some sort of mid-air dance of death. Gohan could feel energy fading, he could feel a lot happening just by seeing her. He could also feel his heart beginning to empty.   
  
A flash of motion and Gohan had touched down a suitable distance from the grunting, groaning Grand Enforcer, laying Hotaru down on the ground and shaking her. "Hotaru?!"   
  
"Did I get it?" She asked, obviously losing life by the moment.   
  
_ Trust in my self righteous suicide  
I cry, when angels deserve to die  
In my self righteous suicide  
I cry, when angels deserve to die  
  
_ "If you didn`t it won`t be around much longer," Gohan promised, eyes beginning to water. The sky had lightened only by a fraction since the end of the attack. Gohan watched as Hotaru`s head went limp, a faint smile placed onto her lips. "Hotaru?" He asked. "Gohan," Hotaru spoke up, staring straight up as if she didn`t see him.   
  
"Yes?" He asked.   
  
"Have you ever been kissed?" She asked back. Gohan blinked. "No," he replied uneasily. "Same here," she mumbled out, eyes sliding shut. "Hotaru?" Gohan asked. He leaned down a bit. No response, he could just barely feel her breathing though. Her energy was fading as well. He leaned down a bit further, and, in a surprise to himself, placed a singular kiss on her lips.   
  
That`s when he had known something. He figured it out, it _snapped_ into place as her body slowly faded, leaving behind nothing but a small piece of crystal. He figured it out alright, he had loved her without even knowing it. Hell, he was too young to know he had. A soulmate, that`s what he`d found. He`d never even realized it until she was dead. He had his opposite, the part that would`ve inevitably completed him, sitting under his nose for close to two or three days, been attracted to her without even realizing it.   
  
And she was dead now.   
  
"Hotaru..." He muttered one last time. His eyes watered at an increased rate as he blinked a few times, thoughts and his heart alike racing, empty. Part of him felt gone, the other part felt a building anger, a building hatred pooling up inside of him.   
  
Gohan leaned back up, blankly staring at the piece of crystal before picking it up. Tears knowingly fell from his eyes as he turned around, taking the small crystalline needle and pressing it against the kanji of his father`s name, which rested over his heart, hard enough to emblazen it into the fabric of his overshirt. The Grand Enforcer was on it`s feet now, disoriented and with a massive gaping hole in it`s chest armor.   
  
"Beams" of water, combined with a gigantic arrow of fire shot in from the side and smashed into the Grand Enforcer, causing untold damage.   
  
It stood though.   
  
"You won`t be standing much longer," Gohan vowed, walking forward with new purpose.   
  


_End Part Six  
_

  


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**Author`s Note:** *Slightly nervous due to Gohan having a ki blast ready to throw at him.* ... Eheh... Ehm... Yeah... See ya next chapter if he doesn`t blow my head off...  
  



	7. No Leaf Clover

  
**Author`s Note:** Almost... There... Just a few... Steps... Further...  
  
**Gohan:** *Snort. Blasts him again.*  
  
x.x;  
  
**Gohan:** Good. Read the fic. *Stomps Sh33p some more.* BAD SH33P! BAD BAD BAD! *Stompstompstomp.*  
  
**Disclaimer:** I *ow* Don`t *ouch* Own *OW* DBZ OR SAILOR MOON! ***_|CENSORED|_***  
  


* * *

  


** Hybrid Theory: Evolution **  
_No Leaf Clover   
  
  
  
_

Grand Enforcer lived, even as another wave of attacks rammed into it from the opposite side. It lived and it angrily stood despite the best attempts those fighting it could throw. One had unleashed a newly learned attack created by a god, others had let loose with attacks that had decayed it`s defenses. But one other, one among them all, had paid the ultimate price to try and kill it. And she had failed. Her only payment for that sacrifice was a piece of who she was, who she could have been and who she might have ended up becoming, emblazened over a kanji in the overshirt of a boy at the age of twelve. A highly angered, extremely powerful, half-alien hybrid, the first of his kind and potentially the strongest being to walk the universe in five million years.   
  
Grand Enforcer bled a bit from the wound in it`s chest. A wound that ran only skin deep, it could survive and heal, with time anyway. Goten rested on his hands in knees in a street blocks from the actual fighting, Bra was unconcious in an office building, likely to have been carried out by now by a good samaritan or left to her own devices. She could survive either way, really. And then Hotaru, she was dead. Hotaru was dead.   
  
Gohan scowled, stepping forward. The sounds of a storm could be heard echoing overhead as the still aching Grand Enforcer turned around, sensing the presence of a power that seemed to grow with no bounds. The ground beneath his feet seemed to crush and melt, his aura rose and expanded until it was visible from across the city, a towering pillar of golden fire that burned as bright as a newly born star. Energy suddenly began to crack from within as Gohan took another step forward. Power ripped from the grounds, and two buildings, one to either side of him, both abandoned two or three story tall stores, collapsed for no visible reason. Strong winds kicked up and dust tore from the ground as a tornado rose up and began to obscure the boy`s aura, only to fly away.   
  
His hair suddenly elongated, becoming more defined, only a single lock dangling out over his forehead. Power surged around him, his body mass seemed to increase just a bit, every part of him becoming just a bit more defined from everything else. Grand Enforcer finally noticed visibly, and growled in discontent while taking a step back.   
  
Gohan took two steps forward. The Grand Enforcer lashed out, through it`s full weight into a downward moving blow towards Gohan and everything within six or seven feet of him, making impact with a vicious explosion. The concrete shattered into a fist shaped crater. Grand Enforcer lifted it`s fist back, confident it had killed the potential threat, confident that another had fallen. It _knew_, you see, that _nothing_ could _ever_ hope to destroy it. It`s power just _could not_ be matched. Son Gohan _**had**_ to be dead, there just wasn`t any other way.   
  
And then the Grand Enforcer watched as a figure bordering on five and a half feet stepped up out of the crater and continued walking, literally unphased. For the first time in it`s existence, the Grand Enforcer felt fear.   
  
Fear that was well based.   
  
_ And it feels right this time  
On this crash course we're in the big time  
Pay no mind to the distant thunder  
Beauty fills his head with wonder, boy....  
  
"Hotaru died to kill this thing,"_ Gohan thought, taking another step forward and staring blankly ahead. _"She did enough damage to mark off a target for me,"_ he thought, stopping a few dozen feet in front of the monstrosity. The size difference was absolutely disgusting, but the fact remained that the Grand Enforcer was outmatched, and it knew it. With a powerful flap of it`s slightly battered wings, it took to the air and tried to fly away. Gohan smirked. _"I`ll make him suffer more than Cell did,"_ he thought with an unknowing sadism to his words.   
  
Garlic Junior, Raditz, the Cyba Men, Nappa, Vegeta, Dodoria, Recoom and the rest of the Ginyu Force, Frieza, King Kold, Cell, the Cell Juniors, Puujin, Bido, Zangya, Bojack, Dabura, the Grand Enforcer. All of them had tried to kidnap, kill, maim, or otherwise destroy him and those around him. Some, like Raditz and Zangya, he had forgiven, even come to think of as friends. Others? He had grown to develop a festering hatred for them. The only time it had ever taken root and taken control of him however, it had been Cell and his children. He had killed them all, the Cell Juniors first, and then Cell himself, twice in the same battle no less. He humiliated them. Bojack, Puujin and Bido he had outright slaughtered, twice in Bojack`s own case. Zangya lived because he had a shred of mercy. Dabura proved strong enough during their battle to equal him, he was allowed to live until they could fight again.   
  
The Grand Enforcer would be afforded no such luxury. It was going to die in the most brutal, humiliating way that Gohan could concieve in the short time he had availible. He paused his unending march long enough to let it get a bit of distance into the skies, thinking itself safe. It thought it could escape him, thought it could kill someone he had been close to without even realizing it, thought it could smack down his brother and his default-adopted sister and get away with it. It thought, in some stupid little sense, that it was going to turn _his_ Time into some sort of lawless _Hell_.   
  
It thought **_wrong_**.   
  
And Gohan fully intended to make sure it knew it`s mistake inside and out.   
  
_ Says it feels right this time  
Turn around, found new high lights  
Good day to be alive Sir  
Good day to be alive, he said.....  
  
_ "Five... Four..." He began to count down.   
  
There was a streak of fire up in the skies and Grand Enforcer groaned a bit as a Flame Sniper attack struck it squarely in it`s still injured side. It`s flight limped noticably for a second as another wave of those 'water beams' flashed up from the ground and smacked into it, a strange looking circle enveloping it and then shattering. Grand Enforcer almost fell.   
  
"Three... Two..."   
  
Another pair of attacks, this time in unison, streaked up from another point in the ground, another of those heart-type attacks, which scythed into the open wound in Grand Enforcer`s chest, forming a visible heart around it. It too, shattered into numerous pieces. This time, Grand Enforcer did fall. Gohan stood beneath it, staring up as gathered a bit of power into his hand.   
  
"One..." He finished the count down and then promptly vanished from the ground. There was the sound of a whistle and then a stop as Gohan appeared in the Grand Enforcer `s path, arm outstretched. The huge creature smacked into his open palm and stayed there, held aloft by a super powered youth hellbent on making it suffer. Ki in his free hand was suddenly thrown, trailing around the circular wound and then diving into the decaying portion of the demon`s chest. Grand Enforcer howled and Gohan vanished, appearing behind it.   
  
Both fists crashed down into the back of the creature`s head, sending it into a straight nose dive into the ground. Only to stop before it could ever make impact. Gohan somehow held it by the tip of it`s tail and methodically yanked it back up, extending his right leg out and swinging around. In a buzzsaw-like movement, the youth had severed a good twenty foot section of the monster`s tail, sheering out the other side and blasting the severed chunk of body mass out of existance as the Grand Enforcer itself let out what almost sounded like an actual scream, smashing into the ground seconds later.   
  
And on that very ground, stood a number of people who were in absolute shock at what was happening.   
  
Grand Enforcer clawed it`s way back to it`s feet, gathering up energy inside of it`s and then vomiting forth another beam of fiery energy out at it`s most obvious foe, who raised one hand flat towards it, fingers spread out. The attack came closer, nothing happened, and then it came to where it pressed against the open hand of Grand Enforcer`s worst nightmare. The entity stopped it`s attack and waited anxiously.   
  
It`s wait was rewarded as it watching it`s attack form up into a sphere around Son Gohan, who vanished within an orange fireball, only to watch again as that fireball seemed to dissipate and a beam rocketed out of the remains, the same color as it`s attack had been. The creature jumped up only to dodge the strike by actual inches, as the attack itself curved at the last moment and blew out a visible trench running down several hundred feet as a result of the ensuing explosion.   
  
It was the same canyon that Gohan would one day live the past of the future and meet a young girl named Bra. All that was lacking was the proper weather upheavals to trigger a river and the like.   
  
Grand Enforcer touched down a few yards away only to find Gohan standing on it`s nose, that same neutral scowl on his face as the boy stood. It really _was_ like facing a mosquito from Hell this time around! "You`re going to suffer. And then you`re going to die. What does that feel like?" The boy asked coldly while hopping back and onto the creature`s actual nose. "Tell me!" He demanded, gathering a ki blast and throwing it at point blank.   
  
Grand Enforcer howled in even further agony as it`s right eye exploded. There was nothing flashy about it either, it was just an explosion. A particularly hateful one at that. Grand Enforcer reached up and tried to smack Gohan away without sheering it`s own nose off. Whereas before, Gohan had allowed himself to be moved, this time he just brought an arm up. Grand Enforcer`s hand slammed down upon his arm with enough force to shatter a small moon. It did nothing to even budge his arm. He just stood there with that cold scowl still present on his face.   
  
Grand Enforcer`s eye socket bled as Gohan forcibly shoved it`s arm away, hard enough to almost jar it`s forearm from the socket of it`s elbow. Gohan lowered his arm and then extending them both, letting out a loud yell as beam after beam of ki shot from his body, trailing around the Grand Enforcer and striking into it at every point you could think of, each time drilling through the armor with one explosion after another. The monster screeched with each impact, standing only because the blasts came in at such an angle to prevent it from falling.   
  
_ Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel  
Is just a freight train coming your way  
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel  
Is just the freight train coming your way   
  
_ Gohan backflipped off of the creature`s nose, circling around in front of it. Grand Enforcer snapped it`s jaws outward, closing them around the boy. It had him where it wanted him now...   
  
On the ground, Goten stood up and watched as a noticably beaten in Grand Enforcer`s mouth seemed to glow a nuclear shade of orange. Elsewhere, Usagi and Chibi Usa began to realize just how lucky they had been to dodge the strike from earlier that had seared a visible canyon into the earth, running just a few hundred feet away from the base of what had been Tokyo Tower. Elsewhere still Haruka and Michiru gaped, as did Rei, Ami, Ryo and Yuuichirou, though the latter more or elss favored getting everyone out of the area entirely.   
  
And Rei thought it had been Goten they should`ve worried about. As far as she was concerned now, Goten was a little angel compared to the boy who was now, quite literally, torturing the demon to death in a way that made her entire body cringe.   
  
And in one other place there stood a woman holding a familiar key-shaped staff with an ancient talisman placed upon it. She watched the fighting, and some part of her was pleased at what Gohan was doing, another part of her was somewhat shocked and disgusted, but for the most part, she didn`t care. She stood on, looking at the spot her daughter had died in. Setsuna was in mourning, she probably would be for a long time. She could`ve easily gotten Hotaru from the way but then, Setsuna saw the history of what had happened. If her daughter hadn`t sacrificed her life, all of the others would`ve been dead. Not to mention the rest of Tokyo, even though that wasn`t saying much given the present conditions.   
  
Setsuna shook her head and turned her back to the fighting. She didn`t need to see it to know how it would end. Still, a part of her cheered the combatant who was currently dismantling the Grand Enforcer piece by bloody piece.   
  
Revenge was something even a Passage Gaurdian wasn`t above.   
  
Grand Enforcer made an audible gulping sound and then roared out in a staggering victory cry. Goten on the other hand, let his senses do the talking. "Dumb thing," he thought aloud, flaring his ki up and taking to the air. He flashed in towards the entity that was now looking terribly unenthused as a noticable bulge began to form in it`s abdomen. For a moment it looked almost like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, as the Grand Enforcer seemed to gain more and more size, fattening up almost before part of it`s body began to glow, namely the center point of it`s belly.   
  
The glow became a little brighter. Goten moved around the Grand Enforcer and waited, watching the glow become more intense by the second as a searing sound came from within, like a torch cutting through metal. Then there was an explosion as a golden beam shot out of the creature`s stomach. Gohan suddenly just seemed to appear in it`s path, taking a moment and kicking it back at the creature and watching coldly as the attack seemed to veer off course and miss Grand Enforcer`s head intentionally, arcing downward and curving through the bases of both wings before it curved again and slammed through the base of Grand Enforcer`s tail, arcing upward into the skies and shooting off into space an instant later.   
  
_ Don't it feel right like this  
All the pieces fall to his wish  
Suck up for that quick reward boy  
Suck up for that quick reward they said.....   
  
_ Gohan watching Grand Enforcer wobble and stumble without it`s tail to provide balance. Without the tail, it was just as disoriented as he had first been without his own tail. Just as clumsy, just as foolishly inept at movement. He reached his hand out promptly and gathered energy up into it, throwing a ki blast at random into one of the creature`s kneecaps. It screeched again and fell to one knee, it`s own weight almost toppling it over this time. Gohan stood impassively in the air.   
  
Another crack of thunder passed by as energy continued to spark off of the boy`s body. He slowly began to drift forward. The Grand Enforcer drew back, almost toppling over from the movement, and then let loose with a move similar to a haymaker. In any normal combat situation, the blow could`ve probably punched into a foe and the force would`ve carried through in the form of a two mile long wave of death the width of the creature`s first. Such was the power of the Grand Enforcer.   
  
And such was the power of Son Gohan that the attack`s entire might had been stopped almost effortlessly with a kiai-type yell so loud it couldn`t register even in the Grand Enforcer`s ears. The clouds overhead shot open and the ground beneath the pair cratered with no explosion, and the Grand Enforcer`s hand slowed to a dead stop before crumpling back into it`s now disfigured arm. It fell back this time, and it would have hit the ground if not for the sudden reappearance of another member of the fighting.   
  
"**_BIG BANG KAME HAME HA!!!_**"   
  
Grand Enforcer stopped as the attack, hidden from Gohan`s own view, punched into it`s back. The area beneath the creature flashed hot, heavenly blue and the shadow it cast seemed to be the only darkness visible for miles around, and in the center of that shadow lit a singular golden flame, sparking with lightning and centered around the body of a second level Super Saiyan, who`s eyes alone seemed to burn with the fury of a long dead race despite his blended heritage.   
  
The power behind the Grand Enforcer finally succeeded in shoving the creature off of the ground and into the air, moving it with an intensity that wouldn`t be seen or rivaled for hundreds of years. The creature shrieked as another pulse of energy was thrown into the attack, the base of which centered around a second Super Saiyan in his early twenties, who`s golden aura tinged red and orange under the results of a Kaio Ken power-up.   
  
The attack finally detonated as Goten finished it, collapsing to his knees under the strain of using such power that it actually came close to touching on that weilded by the other of the two Super Saiyans, his aura flittering out like a dying candle and his hair setting itself forward, black again.   
  
The explosion shoved the Grand Enforcer skyward, towards the very being it had tried to escape from earlier, the very being who`s hands seemed to rise up over his head and lower back down into a flat, spread position. "Kame..." The boy began to gather up power, his entire aura lighting up brighter than before. His hands came together at the wrist and were soon placed to his side as the gigantic beast, beaten and at death`s edge, came flying at him.   
  
"Hame..." Power became visible behind him, streaks of blue-white light shot from behind him, and the world seemed to shake and tremble in frightful anticipation. Grand Enforcer howled once more and continued flying, the flames of a still lasting explosion carrying it skyward and tilting it upright in the process.   
  
Gohan waited. Grand Enforcer came closer. He waited some more. It was closer still. A few more feet. The smell was present in his nostrisl as he dove shoulder-first down at the beast, diving through the center of the wound that had been created by Hotaru`s sacrifice and then smashing his way out the back. Gohan blew backwards through the explosion of the Big Bang Kame Hame Ha, backflipping as he did so and landing on the ground some hundreds of feet below with mirror imprints from his boots, feet sinking in several inches.   
  
Both hands shot forward and an ethereal blue glow filled the area as the attack shot no just from Gohan`s palms, but from the entire area around him. Twenty feet in diameter, the Kame Hame Ha blasted from the ground around Gohan and flew towards the Grand Enforcer, punching through the flames as the dying creature flipped upside down and watched the attack come with it`s intact eye.   
  
"**_HA!!!_**"   
  
End of the line for the Grand Enforcer.   
  
_ Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel  
Is just a freight train coming your way  
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel  
Is just the freight train coming your way...  
  
_ In a morbid way, the power to destroy entire solar systems in the blink of an eye, the power to end entire races as if they were a speck of dust caught in a tornado, the power to destroy virtually anything that had lived in the past five million years was something that the Grand Enforcer found strangely soothing. The beam pushed it`s way out of the cloud of expanding fire that had resulted from Goten`s attack, sweeping it up like nothing and expanding in width as it approached Grand Enforcer.   
  
Beautiful, really. Even though it was going to be it`s end, a part of the Grand Enforcer almost wanted to celebrate. This Time didn`t need it to sew death and destruction. The natives alone could do it thousands of times better if they were properly honed. With a feral cry, the Grand Enforcer ripped off a finger and cast it aside as hard as it could. The piece flew through the air and into low orbit before falling back down like a small comet, slamming into the ground in a place that would one day be the foundations of Doctor Asmodeous Gero`s labratory.   
  
The piece would one day be the foundations what would be improved until it formed the genetic structure of the being known as Cell.   
  
And the beam came closer. It`s roar was like the Ride of Valkyries for Grand Enforcer. Closer still, close enough that Grand Enforcer could smell the ozone burning around it. Like staring into the heart of a newborn star...   
  
_ It's coming your way  
It's coming your way...  
Here comes   
  
_ The world turned blindingly white as the beam overtook the form of the brutalized Grand Enforcer, an explosion visible from across the solar system. Setsuna was uneffected. It was time to go to work and begin to set events in motion that would one day change the course of history.   
  
With her eyes shut, she recited a quick chant and several miles away, hidden by the blinding glow of the explosion, a pair of portals opened up. Rei Hino and Yuuichirou Kumada felt the ground beneath them vanish away, and both were gone without a trace. Setsuna kept her eyes shut as the two fell through time and reappeared, 400 or 500 years into the future.   
  
She turned away from the explosion and opened her eyes, virtually uneffected by the onslaught of light that would blind almost anyone, and probably would do at least temporary damage to the visions of hundreds of the survivors of the battle. Likely that none of the senshi that remained would be effected, given the magics on them all prevented things like that. It wasn`t as if it mattered to Setsuna though, she just did her job as she had it. Things would happen whether she liked it or not, it was her goal to make sure that they happened in the best way possible.   
  
Not that any of that mattered to her at the moment. Today had been the day that Setsuna lost her daughter. Again. She took little comfort in the brutal form of revenge imposed by the boy that the girl`s soul was fated be with, the boy himself probably wouldn`t even realize it until she told him herself. A mother`s grief was all she had for the time being, but she didn`t cry, other than a single, solitary tear that drifted out into the air and evaporated before it could even touch the ground. It would be a long, lonely walk to the place she needed to be, but she would do it.   
  
Time stands still for no one. Not even it`s own gaurdians.   
  
_ Yeah, then it comes to be  
That the soothing light at the end of your tunnel  
Is just a freight train coming your way...  
Yeah, then it comes to be, yeah...  
  
_ "That was for you, Hotaru," Gohan muttered whistfully. It was a funny thing to him, or it would be in some bitter way when he was older, that in the entire fight after her demise, he had been crying and hadn`t even realized it. With his mission of revenge accomplished though, Gohan powered down through the various stages of Super Saiyan and eased off. His hair fell back down and became less defined and spikey, his body mass decreased a bit and his eyes began to fade to black. His hair fell down entirely to it`s usual state of ordered disarray, black now instead of golden. His eyes finished their color transition to black as well, and the battered youth wiped his eyes regretfully.   
  
Hundreds, maybe thousands were dead. He didn`t care. It hadn`t hit him yet, and it probably wouldn`t for a long while as he climbed up from the two potholes his feet had created and began to walk aimlessly off in some direction or another. Behind him came a few coughs, Goten staggered into view but Gohan didn`t even pay any attention to his presence.   
  
For the most part, the other didn`t really look at him either, a bit too concerned with finding his adopted little sister. Bra had been in one of those buildings, virtually all of which had since toppled by now. If she was dead...   
  
No, she wasn`t dead. Goten thought his eyes were decieving him briefly as a golden haired girl of Bra`s age slashed her way through a pile of debris and jumped out, virtually unharmed or virtually unfeeling of physical pain for the time being. He broke into a fit of laughter and fell over gleefuly as Bra touched down, unnoticing of her own change before he pointed at the fact the world seemed to move a bit slower to her senses, and that there was a strange yellow heat shift in her vision, the result of her aura.   
  
Off down the street, Gohan continued his walk. He didn`t care.   
  
He just didn`t care.   
  


_ End Part 7  
_

  


* * *

  
**Author`s Note:** *Twitches.*  
  
**Gohan:** He`s a bit busy at the moment. He`ll be back next chapter to *STOMP.* explain some things....  
  



	8. Frozen

  
**Author`s Note:** *Currently in a bodycast.* So yeah... Piccolo managed to pry Gohan off of me. I think all the blood lossage made me use a Madonna song, but anyway... If you`re wondering, I tend to rank the Sailor Senshi/Scouts as the equal opposites of the Z Senshi/Fighters. While the Z cast tend to be a good millions of times more powerful **physically**(which includes Ki Attacks and such), the Moon cast tend to be a good load stronger in magics, to the extent that they could probably smack a guy like Babidee down in a few minutes and not give it any other thought. Just how I do things though, in case anyone was wondering...  
  
*Cue Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings.* Hope you enjoy the last part, it was a blast writing it, that`s for sure!  
  
**Disclaimer:** I don`t own it. Whee...  
  


* * *

  


** Hybrid Theory: Evolution   
**_Frozen_   
  
  
  


In life, Son Gohan had learned a good many things. Healing remedies, planet busting attacks, how to fly, how to be independent and how to deal with being a half-alien hybrid with powers he himself could scarcely comprehend. Most of all, he had learned that life wasn`t fair. He had learned it first when his father was killed and he was stranded alone for six months, he had learned it again watching his father`s allies and then his own mentor were all killed, only his mentor`s death actually succeeding in doing any good whatsoever. He learned it again and again after that, culminating when he`d learned that a fair life just didn`t exist when he not only surpassed his father, but took his place, watched him die and then been forced to grow up emotionally even more than he had before.   
  
One of the key lessons these hardships provded to him was a simple fact that virtually anyone with a brain could understand. Grief sucks. It`s that simple, and right now, Son Gohan had a _lot_ of grief. He had enough grief to fuel the world`s pity parties for decades and then save some for his own personal use. He had apathy to others` grief right now, and there was surely a lot to go around.   
  
Tokyo city lay in ruins. A virtual cataclysm had happened during the battle against Grand Enforcer, it made any Godzilla movie look like a toddler in kindergarden. Fires raged through what remained, thousands were dead, thousands more dying and thousands of others left to pick up the pieces. Battered beyond belief, Tokyo practically didn`t exist anymore. Army vehicles rolled in as rescue efforts began, the nation of Japan`s shock having been too great to respond during the actual battle itself. Even if they had, they wouldn`t have done much.   
  
Gohan didn`t even register their existence. The remaining sailor senshi were all probably mourning the loss of one of their own, assuming they even knew she was dead. It was likely they knew Rei and Yuuichirou were gone though, possibly dead as well. Hotaru`s demise still stung at him at the moment. The fact he could`ve ended the battle without any effort was bringing back painful memories of Cell. At least this time the damnable monstrosity wouldn`t come back though, Gohan had made doubly sure of that.   
  
People ran around and an explosion sounded off beside him as he blankly walked ahead. He looked like the survivor of some warzone or another. Hell, given the condition of the city it was almost a given that he would look the way he did. Blood ran down from a good many wounds, all of them minor, bruises had formed on him as well. These too were minor.   
  
He could have ended it at the start and he didn`t. Hotaru was dead because of it. She was dead. Because he just _had_ to go and keep his trump card a secret until it was too late.   
  
Sometimes it sucked to be him.   
  
_ You only see what your eyes want to see  
How can life be what you want it to be  
You're frozen  
When your heart's not open  
  
_ Pieces of debris littered the streets. Gohan paid no attention to them. People ran by trying to help survivors, trying to clear through debris he himself would move with a thought. He didn`t even notice they existed. A man died in front of him, running from a burning building as it was wracked by another explosion. Debris ran him through and he was impaled there, soon ripped in half beneath the collar.   
  
Gohan didn`t even realize the man was there to begin with. An unnatural calm with an unnatural numbness had settled over him as the now dead-faced, battle shocked youth stepped over the debris and the body and continued. Tears wouldn`t even fall by now, the sobering fact that the person he now realized - even if he was too young to know it during their short time together - that he should`ve spent the rest of his life with was gone. And it was his fault.   
  
All because he wouldn`t use that damned trumpcard. First it had killed his father, then it killed Hotaru and now it was slowly killing what remained of his humanity. Never before in his life had Son Gohan been so utterly numbed to the suffering of others. He had spent time and effort burying the Nameks, essentially on his own, as a child. He had saved the world almost on his own twice before he was even ten years old. He had even saved a pair of villages from mass paranoia and quasi-enslavement mere days prior to the Cell Games.   
  
But now? Amid the trials of pain and death that had once been known as Tokyo City, he found nothing. The people needed him the most now, they got no help from him. Apathy had taken over, grief shocked apathy. It was the kind that, no matter the age, one got when a soulmate dies. The apathy to the agony around oneself, the apathy to one`s own physical pain. Right now Gohan felt like crawling into a little hole in the middle of no where and blowing himself up somehow. Just ending it all. Getting rid of himself and the problem in one fell swoop.   
  
Maybe that way he`d see her again...   
  
_ You're so consumed with how much you get  
You waste your time with hate and regret  
You're broken  
When your heart's not open  
  
_ It was then that he finally noted the figure who had somewhere along the way ended up walking with him. She was tall, tan, green haired and easily recognizable. Gohan and Setsuna said nothing to one another, only mutual bitterness and mutual resentment over what had happened. They also shared something stronger, a mutual grief that numbed one and made the other revert to habits long since abandoned in favor of other things. For one, there was the stately walk Setsuna had assumed. It was something she hadn`t done since her brief period as the Moon Queen, in a Time of this Time, but not. She had also reverted to chewing on the right side of her tongue lightly, another habit created from stress.   
  
Between them, the air was thick enough to be tangible, thick enough to be cut with a knife.   
  
Neither said a thing, but the walk continued, even as Gohan closed his eyes and just wandered along, tracing his path via Setsuna`s ever varying energy signature. Setsuna used the oppurtunity to wipe the excess moisture from her eyes. One tear was enough. One tear, one daughter, one death, one destiny.   
  
Setsuna knew it was only an intermediate thing at the worst.   
  
But it still hurt like hell.   
  
_ If I could melt your heart  
We'd never be apart  
Give yourself to me  
You hold the key  
  
_ Clutching her staff lightly towards her chest, Setsuna wandered on, even as a pair of visitors trailed them from above. The devestation was mighty indeed, but it was scarce compared to the outright bloodletting of a Majin prince who`s own grandparents hadn`t even been born yet. Goten and Bra knew enough not to interfere though, they did as they knew and they knew what they did. Bra, now faded from Super Saiyan, had managed to hold off on any sour comments about not getting congratulated properly by everyone but Goten, who had broken into outright celebration with her. She knew enough not to anger anyone who could kill an entity her adopted brother could only chancingly defeat at best.   
  
Goten however, had lost his apathy for once. He was showing a similar concern to what had been shown for him when the two first met.   
  
He was also eying Setsuna like a hawk.   
  
The city remained as a raging inferno, even as a soothing mist, deeply blue and deeply comforting, drifted through the streets, driven by a blue haired young girl who was doing her best to give the rescue crews a bleeding chance in hell to actually save anyone. The fog was quick moving, almost as quick as the quartet that had, by now, arrived at their destination.   
  
Others were waiting for them. Usagi and Mamoru, the latter holding a slightly beaten up Chibi Usa, stood in their path. They were all in normal form now, even though it left them exposed.   
  
"What happened to Rei? And what about Hotaru?" Usagi demanded angrily, glaring at the apathetic Gohan. Setsuna said nothing as the funeral procession continued, and neither did Gohan, even as Bra and Goten touched down. Bra was quicker, darting by Usagi to check on Chibi Usa while Goten limped over to the group, shaking his head. "Hotaru is dead. I don`t know about that Rei girl but she seems to be missing, same with her boyfriend," he stated quietly. "I`m sorry," he admitted finally while stepping around the odango haired blonde and continuing on the walk. Bra gave the now standing Chibi Usa a bearhug and the pair chattered briefly before the aqua green haired youth, sword still sheathed on her back, moved off after Goten.   
  
The Chiba family remained behind. Both of the girls bearing the name Usagi had broken down, hugging one another, and Mamoru was hugging both of them in as soothing a way as the man could.   
  
_ Love is a bird, she needs to fly  
Let all the hurt inside of you die  
You're frozen  
When your heart's not open  
  
_ "What now?" Gohan finally asked. His voice rang out with a stillness that shocked the heart cold.   
  
"You all head home," Setsuna replied just as coldly.   
  
Goten and Bra moved to the side of the group, and for several more minutes, there was nothing but walking. Silent walking. And then they arrived at a cratered zone in the middle of what had been Tokyo Tower. Setsuna halted and looked down, muttering something beneath her breath repeatedly.   
  
Gohan stepped off to the side and hugged Bra good-bye. It was the first gesture he had made that signalled his sanity was vaguely intact. "Bye," Bra said a bit hesitantly while stepping away. Gohan said nothing, just gave a wave before staring down.   
  
And that was when the brotherly avoidance finally broke. In a gesture that shocked even the one who carried it out, and a gesture that he hadn`t performed once in over a decade, Son Goten did the one thing he had always wondered if he would ever do again.   
  
He walked up to Gohan, reached out, and drew his older-but-younger brother into a hug. Not a word was said, but for once it was actually not needed. Goten set Gohan back down and gave a nod, walking off after Bra. "You`ll be sent straight to your own timeline," Setsuna informed them for no other reason than to remove apprehension.   
  
Gohan spoke again. "Goten? Bra?" He called out. Both glanced over at him curiously.   
  
"Keep training. You aren`t far off from surpassing the limits you`ve got. And when you do..." He paused. "Give Vegeta a piece of mind for me," he ordered. Both smiled faintly and vanished into the portal.   
  
Silence again as he stepped forward, cracking his neck.   
  
Silence ended as he found the way blocked by a key-shaped staff. "I said I would explain things, didn`t I?" She asked. "Why are you so sad about Hotaru?" He asked without even bothering to warm up. Setsuna replied quickly. "She was my daughter," she replied. "Why was it that Yuuichirou seemed so familiar? _Is_ he really Yamcha or something?"   
  
Setsuna finally let out a low chuckle. "No, but you`ll know him by a different name the next time you see him, he`ll also be about the same age as your father," she replied with a cryptic tone. "Will I ever see Hotaru again?" He asked.   
  
That was the harder question. Setsuna shut her eyes. "As she was, no. But in truth, you already do know her by now, Son Gohan. Her energy changes, but the soul remains the same," she stated. "Her name, as you know it..." Setsuna paused.   
  
Gohan waited.   
  
Setsuna gave the answer. For some reason, he wasn`t surprised.   
  
_ If I could melt your heart  
We'd never be apart  
Give yourself to me  
You hold the key  
  
_ Gohan nodded, reaching back up to his shirt and finding his grief gone. The crystalline shard remained though, until he plucked it from the kanji of his father`s name and glanced to Setsuna again. "And this?" He asked. "In all lives, a senshi has hidden power. Hotaru`s power lied only within the soul, and as she was here, that power was unlocked at a fraction of it`s potential. The girl has it too, but it doesn`t rely solely on the part of her soul she can freely access."   
  
Gohan eyed the gem contemplatively. "This is a key then?"   
  
"Something like that," Setsuna answered. Gohan gave a nod and turned towards the portal. Shard in hand, he took a deep breath and bent his knees to jump in.   
  
_ "See you again, Firefly,"_ he thought. It would be nice to be home again...   
  


**_  
June 6th, 757 AD, 25th Century(standard)_**  
  


  
Yuuichirou was nervous. What new father wouldn`t be? He and Rei had new lives now, new names to go with them, they`d become themselves. No fighting for the world, no splitting apart. Even if his job kept them far apart they were close where, and when it counted. And his boss was understanding, so he was free to be here for the birth of their first child. A baby girl too. Yuuichirou had wanted a son, but something about having a daughter appealed to him. Maybe it meant he would be free to be the lighthearted goof he had become at heart, or maybe it just meant he didn`t have to work as hard as most fathers should to give their sons some sort of male role model. Rei would make the perfect mother, right?   
  
Regardless, the doctor led him through the hallway and eventually came to a single window that peeked into a room filled with newborn girls. His daughter`s crib was marked with #18[*], and beneath it was what he could swear to be the prettiest child he had ever set his eyes on. His own. His daughter. _He and Rei`s offspring._   
  
Yuuichirou wanted to jump through the glass and smother the infant with affection, but he restrained himself. "Do you and your wife have a name for her, yet, sir?" The nurse asked, having been taking information on the fly as of late. A baby boom following a power outage nine months earlier had meant the hospitla was rather busy this past month. Yuuichirou took a moment to think. There had been several names that appealed to him. Helen, Christine, and othes. But none seemed to equal the name that came to mind as he turned away to the nurse.   
  
Nobody caught the fact she had a fairly odd birthmark on her forehead, that glew briefly and faded just as quickly.   
  
"Do you have a name for her?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"What is it?"   
  
"Videl Satan."   
  
  
_

End Evolution  
  


* * *

  


_ Author`s Note: [*] The dates(both the day and month), as well as the number of her crib can all at least be corrupted into six. Three sixes. Then the names Helen and Christine, my little add-on to the Satan-name pun trend.  
  
Hope you enjoyed my second outing into SM/DBZ crossovers! Leave a review, see ya next time! *Somehow gimps his way back over to the DBZ story section, despite his body cast.*  
  
**Gohan:** *Snort. Blasts Sh33p again.*  
  
**_OW!!!_**  
  
**Piccolo:** ... _Sh33p_ *Winces as Sh33p gets blasted again.* Out...  
  



End file.
